Shellbound Interview: Sitting Down With Fake Lobster to Discuss Their Upcoming Metroidvania

The Metroidvania continues to experience something of an ongoing renaissance, especially in the world of indie game development, where new teams are springing up and coming out of the gate with homages to their favorite titles in the genre, both new and old. One such title is the debut game from German studio Fake Lobster, which is currently hard at work developing Shellbound, a game curiously described as a “post-Metroidvania” with a captivating art style and an interesting premise. Rather than traverse a static interconnected world made up of various biomes, the world in Shellbound is both a living organism and the title’s overarching antagonist. Getting to both explore and affect this world in ways that dynamically shift gameplay is just one of Shellbound‘s many draws.

We recently went hands-on with an early preview build of Shellbound and walked away with the impression that the title is heading in the right direction. While it’s still a ways off from full release (with a targeted 2027 launch window), Shellbound is already showing plenty of promise, and our conversation with the game’s lead designer Nils Klatt, and Fake Lobster Co-CEO and Co-Founder Eric Frantzen helped to provide more insight regarding the title’s inspirations, mechanics, and ultimate vision. In addition to Klatt and Frantzen, we also got to speak with Shellbound‘s art director at Fake Lobster, Aina Theede, to get some insight into Shellbound‘s inspirations for its striking hand-drawn visuals. The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Shellbound’s Origins

Q: How did Shellbound come about? Was the goal for Fake Lobster always to have its debut title be a Metroidvania?

Klatt: The idea to make a game in the first place started when Eric (Co-Founder, Co-CEO) simply wrote: ‘Guys, wanna make a Game?” – and I responded: ‘Hell yes!’

We all come from film and media backgrounds, but we’ve been obsessed with games since we were probably way too young. I used to steal my brother’s Game Boy while he was at school and completely messed up his save states. So really, this was bound to happen at some point.

Shellbound evolved from a half-baked idea into a real project when its world, lore, and bizarre snail ecosystem took shape and became more and more intricate. Gamers and industry folks started taking an interest, and our amazing team came together. The real turning point was when we applied for state funding for a prototype and got it. That pushed us off the cliff, and we thought, “Well, now we have to do it.” And so, Fake Lobster was born.

We’ve played plenty of Metroidvanias, from classics like Castlevania III, Super Metroid, and SotN, and we love them to bits. But we only truly grasped the underlying mechanics as a formula and genre when we played Hollow Knight — total cliché, we know. We adored the game, and its mechanics felt tailor-made for our concept of Shellbound, so it was a natural fit. Practicality also played a role, since some of us hadn’t developed a game before.

Fake Lobster Dives Into the Idea of a ‘Post-Metroidvania’

Q: Shellbound is described as a “Post-Metroidvania”. Can you walk us through what that term entails? What separates a Post-Metroidvania from a traditional Metroidvania?

Klatt: Again, we love Metroidvanias, but we played so many titles during the production of the prototype and the demo that the formula itself started to feel a bit repetitive. Ability gating can sometimes feel rigid and backtracking done wrong gets stale fast. This is why we came up with the slightly presumptuous idea of a “Post-Metroidvania” – take everything we love and challenge the rest.

Let’s focus on backtracking: For Shellbound, we wanted to preserve the sense of exploration even when you come back to parts of the world you’ve already been to. Since our story arc revolves around biological themes and the snail is a closed ecosystem, we came up with “biome evolution” and “enemy evolution”.

Biomes will change their appearance, accessibility, and sometimes gameplay mechanics during a playthrough due to story progression as well as player actions. Here’s one example: If the health of the snail decreases, biomes can lose vitality and become barren. This changes its appearance and structure, affects its inhabitants, and attracts a specific enemy type that really cranks up the difficulty. This way, the world is in constant change, so even a biome you know by heart can feel fundamentally different when you return. While this might sound highly ambitious (and of course it is), it’s also an efficient way to keep the experience engaging and players on their toes, especially within a world that is large yet compact. 

Our enemy evolution system complements this principle. When you kill a certain amount of an enemy type, it evolves into a more advanced stage. Some get tougher and have new attack patterns. Others go through a metamorphosis and evolve from a maggot into a flying enemy that shoots its own vomit. This supports player agency and keeps your enemy encounters fresh throughout the whole playthrough, even if you go back to the very first biome. 

Ability gating remains a core principle of world exploration in Shellbound. But we aim for a highly nonlinear approach — Voidwrought did a great job here — and want ‘intentional sequence breaking’ to be just as fundamental. An example: The player is a parasite, so one of the core mechanics is the ability to infest enemies and control them. This is not only essential for puzzles and combat, but can also open up ways that usually require a specific ability, especially if you pair it with the enemy evolution. Take the caterpillar metamorphosis. Once you bring it to evolve and grow wings, you can infest it and use it to bypass an ability gate. Makes playtesting a living hell to avoid softlocking, but we love it!

Discussing Shellbound’s Inspirations

Q: What were some of the primary gameplay inspirations that contributed to Shellbound’s development?

Klatt: Again, let’s get Hollow Knight out of the way. From its rather simplistic but refined combat, great art style, and deep lore to a world you want to get lost in, every aspect of that game is fantastic. And omg, the music!

Ori definitely inspired the secondary function of our parasite power. Instead of controlling an enemy after infesting, you can fling yourself out of it like a slingshot. In the end, though, our mechanic works quite differently compared to Ori.

Dead Cells and Metroid Dread have among the smoothest controls, where it‘s fun just running around an empty room. We didn‘t recreate those specific movement sets, but we aim to recreate that feeling where you just grab a controller and think, “Yes, this feels great.” And hopefully, we achieved that. 

This might be a surprise, but the German action RPG Gothic II has influenced our approach to backtracking. This game is a masterclass in crafting a compact world that is continuously flooded with new content as you progress through the story chapters, including the regions or ‘biomes’ you’ve already explored. It’s incredibly rewarding to revisit even remote places to see what has changed.

And we have to mention Biomorph. Imagine our sheer horror when we first heard about its core mechanic of transforming into enemies! Of course, our approach differs, as we don’t shapeshift at will but rather parasitize existing opponents. Still, the similarities took us by surprise. That said, we’ll turn this into an advantage and a source of inspiration, especially since they’ve done an amazing job integrating this mechanic into every aspect of their world.

Q: In terms of the game’s visuals and environmental design, what were some of the main artistic inspirations behind Shellbound?

Klatt: I get tired of mentioning it, but Hollow Knight was obviously a major inspiration for the style seen in the demo. It has an incredible balance between beauty and readability, which is crucial for a platformer.

However, our art style is currently undergoing a full redesign and will look entirely different (examples available in the press kit). The new direction takes some inspiration from Ori, as well as the stunning Scavengers Reign series, among others.

Overall, we’re aiming for an aesthetic that fuses vibrant, charming visuals with the horrors of an unforgiving world — Made in Abyss is a key influence in that regard.

Aina Theede: Regarding the new direction in artistic development we wanted to explore ways to give the game a more illustrated quality. The world of Shellbound is a chaotic place filled to the brim with stories that want to be explored and lore snippets that we want to transport through environmental storytelling. We strive to find a balance between performative production and art by integrating aspects of very painterly art styles next to flat color-line art sprites. This is a technique many of you already know from 2D animated Movies or Television Shows.

Since we are currently a small team we decided to keep our old approach to design the assets as modular as possible to ensure quick turnaround times in the art department. Inspirations for this approach are the games Rayman Legends and, of course, Ori and the Blind Forest. We are currently still developing our art style and our pipeline to ensure that we find the best way for us to create an appealing and visually consistent experience for you to enjoy.

Placing an Emphasis on Narrative in Shellbound

Q: From the early preview build, it’s clear that a lot of care and attention has been paid to Shellbound’s story. Will the final version see Shellbound utilizing more direct or environmental means of storytelling in its narrative?

Klatt: We’re big fans of the “show, don’t tell” approach, so environmental and item-based storytelling will do the heavy lifting. 

At the same time, the inhabitants of the ecosystem will, of course, react to certain, rather drastic world events and communicate that in dialogues. When the snail awakens after a millennia-long slumber and starts to move to an unknown destination, wasting half of the infrastructure on its back in the process, people might be inclined to comment on that.

Finally, animated cutscenes will show important story events, like our animated intro trailer. We partner here with Omme Animation, who will not only co-create in-game animations but also these cutscenes.

How Shellbound Attempts to Balance Platforming and Combat

Q: There’s a strong balance between platforming and combat in Shellbound’s current build. Is that something that Fake Lobster hopes to maintain throughout the full experience, or are there plans for the game to eventually emphasize one over the other?

Eric Fantzen: We aim to maintain a balanced focus, but that doesn’t mean we’re trying to distribute it evenly across every biome. So when creating new biomes, we consider the broader picture — how they fit into the story, where on the snail we are, and what makes sense for that moment in time. 

For instance, one biome might lean more heavily on combat, while another focuses more on exploration, platforming, and puzzle-solving, all while maintaining balance for variety’s sake.  So you might face several tough enemies, topped with a boss, in a combat-focused biome. After that, to change the pace, we offer some exploration or lore-related story beats to give you a breather and keep things fresh. 

And on top of that is the Parasite ability that once again adds another layer for platforming, fighting, and also puzzle solving. The challenging part is to not overwhelm players with all the options they will eventually unlock, so besides some big world-encapsulating puzzles, events, and challenges, we try to keep the focus single-room-based. So we design each room as its own puzzle, be it a riddle, platforming challenges, a quirky NPC dialogue, a good ol‘ fight, or a combination of these elements, all while fitting in with the rest of the area, biome, and the world in general.

So, TL:DR — Yes, we try to keep that balance over the course of the game 😅

The Challenges of Designing an Ever-Changing World in Shellbound

Q: One of Shellbound’s hallmarks is that the game’s world is a living organism. How much of a challenge is it to design a game world that is dynamic and shifting versus static?

Frantzen: Since this is our first game, everything is a challenge. 😅 Beyond just figuring out game structure, we have to consider how Story Events and backtracking change the world. In Shellbound, rooms aren’t just randomly connected — they actually reflect the snail’s body, so moving through the game feels like traversing a living creature rather than jumping between disconnected areas. Because of this, changing rooms need to stay within the boundaries of the snail’s organism; they can’t suddenly expand or shrink drastically, as that would break the illusion of a connected world. 

Each biome can have multiple states, depending on what the story dictates. The enormous Copper City, for example, is built inside the snail around the heart chamber: When the snail starts moving, the gigantic machine around the heart that generates electricity breaks. So when you enter the Copper City for the first time, the city is non-functional, requiring repairs before it can power up again. Elevators, doors, lights, safety systems (e.g. turrets) might only function the second time around and therefore make for a completely different playthrough.

Later, major events like destruction or environmental shifts — such as the Mucus Lake draining — can drastically change level layouts and how players interact with them. But beyond story-driven changes, the snail itself is always in motion. Its breathing and heartbeat influence the world in real-time, creating both obstacles and opportunities.

The heartbeat in particular serves as a core gameplay mechanic. It beats at regular intervals, triggering different environmental effects in each area, but later in the game, players gain access to a device called The Remote that lets them control the heartbeat manually and therefore are able to trigger real-time biome shifts. This allows for strategic advantages but also comes with consequences (basically causing cardiac arrhythmias), encouraging players to think carefully about when to use it. We’re even experimenting with areas that shift rhythmically with the snail’s breathing motion, making movement feel like an organic part of the world itself.

Finally, the snail itself is moving toward an unknown destination. Players are born in the nearly dried-up mucus at the end of the snail’s trail and must first make their way to the creature itself. As the snail moves forward, this starting biome continuously expands, creating an ever-growing, shifting landscape. Every time players return to this biome, they’ll find new areas with evolving flora and fauna to explore.

What to Expect From the Final Version of Shellbound

Q: Roughly how long of an experience is Fake Lobster aiming for Shellbound to be?

Klatt: We’re aiming for 15–20 hours of gameplay, though this largely depends on the funding we secure. That said, we’re eager to expand post-release because we already have enough content ideas to double that playtime. 

Q: Where is the team hoping to land as far as Shellbound’s difficulty? Can players expect a full-blown Soulsvania or a more accessible experience?

Frantzen: Our team loves hard games. Most of us grew up in the NES era, where you either got good or let your older sibling finish the game, and we definitely didn’t want them taking credit in the schoolyard.

We are aiming for a tougher challenge, but we don’t want to alienate players who just want to explore the story. The main progression will be tough but manageable with the right abilities and skills. 

Optional content is different, and this is where you’ll face the toughest enemies and bosses. And once again, enemy evolution plays a key role in accessing some of these areas — some can only be reached by evolving enemies, as you’ll need their abilities to progress. And since you have to go there to unlock all endings and get the best goodies, players must choose — defeat enemies to trigger evolution and unlock new areas (but make the game harder) or avoid fights, keeping things easier while missing out on abilities, skills, and lore.

Above all, the game will always be fair. It can be brutally hard, but with patience, proper telegraphing and enemy pattern recognition, it will be manageable. The only RNG we have is in attack patterns — no unfair random spawns or unavoidable hits.

Q: Shellbound is still quite a way out from its 1.0 release. In addition to securing a publisher, what are some of the big goals for the team in the next 12-24 months?

Finding a publisher to secure the remaining funding is indeed one of our major goals. However, with two German state fundings already covering half of the production budget, we’re starting from a strong position. At the moment, we’re wrapping up pre-production and the whole team is eager to kick off production. 

One of the first and most significant challenges will be nailing down our new art style and creating a unique visual identity. There’s so much great competition in the Metroidvania genre, and we need to stand out at first glance — but we’re confident that our new art style will achieve that.

We also have an abundance of features and ideas, which could easily lead to scope creep. But we’re well aware of this and have a project manager in place who keeps us in check and is not afraid of killing darlings.

Since we want to offer players plenty of freedom, non-linear progression and intentional sequence breaking, playtesting and QA throughout the entire production process will be crucial. This requires an active publishing partner, but even more importantly, close communication and collaboration with the community from start to finish.

Lastly, given our goal to support multiple languages and platforms, localization and porting will be a challenge. We’ll need to develop a solid strategy with a potential publisher here. And let’s not forget: Silksong might release in the next 24 months, but we’re fully convinced that this will significantly boost interest in the genre.

END

The image featured at the top of this post is ©CheatCC/Fake Lobster.