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I'm a simple man. I load up the Steam Next Fest demo charts, I CTRL+F search for "Soul" to pull up anything tagged as a Soulslike, and I inject all of the results straight into my eyeballs. Imagine my horror when this ironclad method turned up exactly one (1) game during this month's demo extravaganza, at least at the upper crust of results. Now imagine my relief when that one game turned out to be a whip-smart boss rush that, even as something closer to Zelda than a conventional Soulslike like Lies of P, kicks ass.
Rubinite is the latest Steam Next Fest find to crown my Steam wishlist, and while I won't say its Soulslike user tag is totally unearned, developer Cup Dog Games just calls it a dark fantasy boss rush action game, and that feels more accurate. Titan Souls meets Momodora, basically. You play as a small girl named Ruby – "a princess who has escaped from the Scarlet Kingdom" and is now tearing through monstrosities on a warpath back to that kingdom.
Combat is subtly layered and well tutorialized. Press attack and you'll quickly swing your dagger for light damage. Hold the right trigger and Ruby's blood-red eyes will slowly reveal weaknesses in bosses, stacking up blood markers that can be cashed in for stylish and hard-hitting critical attacks. If you get hit, you'll lose all your stacks. But if you perfectly dodge an attack, you'll instantly get another stack. The closer you are, the faster you'll build stacks. You can probably see where this is going.
Within minutes of installing Rubinite's demo, I was dancing around an arena, danger in one ear and adrenaline in the other, skirting a four-armed beast rather fittingly called The Beast. Incoming attacks are fast but fair – well-timed so you always have a good gut feeling for when to dodge. The pixel art sings, movement is spot-on, and unforgiving bosses are made more approachable by a painless retry button.
When given the choice between parrying and dodging in action games, I generally go for parrying because I find it more satisfying. Rubinite is all dodges, all the time, but exceptional sound design and animation work gives that perfect dodge such oomph that it hits my brain the same way a parry does in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. This is the first game from Cup Dog that's listed on Steam, but it feels very polished. In just this demo, months ahead of a spring 2026 release, Rubinite plays exceptionally well, and I haven't even dug into the skill tree or Hollow Knight-esque charms yet. I need this game yesterday.
