I am not sure I have a useful recommendation either way, but by way of initial clarification: When you say crawler-adjacent are you more concerned with holding onto crawly themes or crawly mechanisms?
Without knowing the answer, here are 3 ideas that come to mind for questionable reasons that I’ll only try to vaguely gesture at (and which you may not find compelling). I’m starting pretty far away from core crawlers, I reckon.
- CloudAge (2020): presented in a way friendly to eurogamers, and possibly too euro for you. But it has lite campaign stuff, has some deckbuilding, arguably has some hints at character (ship) progression, “Looty” mechanics, and (somewhat superfically) hex maps. Chancey cards instead of chancey dice.
- CLANK! 'nuff said.
- Pathfinder the Adventure Card Game. I haven’t played it and can’t vouch fot it, but see some recent discussion starting here in the “What’s on your table?” thread.