A masterclass in action design, Core Keeper delivers an unforgettable experience from start to finish.
90
Verdict
93%
Steam
86
IGDB
Verdict score based on confidence-adjusted Steam reviews?
Very Positive on Steam (93% positive from 63K reviews)
Healthy player count of 4,934 concurrent
Critically acclaimed (86/100 critic average)
Rich open world to explore
Still in Early Access — content may be incomplete
Core Keeper is a survival game and sandbox game developed by Pugstorm and published by Fireshine Games. Set in a procedurally generated underground world, the game combines mining, crafting, farming, automation, and combat while supporting single-player and cooperative multiplayer for up to eight players. Critics have compared its mechanics and tone to Minecraft, Terraria, and Stardew Valley for blending exploration, base-building and survival systems within a darker, atmospheric cave setting.
Runs well on modern hardware.
Last updated 19h ago
The beginning is great but you hit a point where it's like "So.... What now?" Well "What now?" is basically aimless exploration to progress unless you decide to lookup where to go next. For me, this was the Iron Age. I Figured out which biome I needed to explore and harvest resources from and then once again hit "... So what now?" This kind of gameplay works in games like Terraria, or even MineCraft (which both still have a similar problem) because after you've built a little base you ask "So what now?" and the answer is fairly obvious. Dig down. And you know you're on the right track because of all the new and dangerous things you discover. but in this game your already underground, so it's just like "Eh, head a cardinal direction and maybe you'll find the biome YOU NEED to progress. And if you don't, I guess just head the other direction". There's nothing In-Game that hints at or points you in the direction of where you should head to next, other than "Which biome are you getting your teeth knocked out in, just a little less?" I need a bit more to go on than that. Game looks amazing and once you build a nice base in a pretty biome with some skylights it's a great place to chill out but that's where I lost interest. It's called "Core Keeper" but I never once felt like I was "The Keeper of The Core" more so just a guy who built a base kind of close to it and had to go look for stuff to put into the core to escape. Also, when you step on a bug you get this great animation where the bug kind of explodes like you just stomped on it, but when you kill enemy they just flash and *poof* disappear. Stepping on harmless bugs is more satisfying and visceral than slaying actual hostile enemies, and that is super lame.
This game is good in theory. i like the classes and getting to choose one at the start is fun along with getting some fun starting gear. the first hour of this game will feel so insanely cool to you and this game is so beautiful. but roughly after you beat the first 3 main bosses the cracks will start to kinda show. This game just has 0 weapon variety and for some classes (like summoner) just no weapons. Summoner has SIX summon weapons in the whole game, and two of them are orbitals which orbit 1 inch from you and are lame, so in reality it has 4. this is a long game, i dont wanna use 4 freakin summons throughout the whole game. this game has a loop of going into a new area and mining the ore, then using it to beat the boss, but the ore only unlocks the ore types "jack of all trades master of none" armor which is unusable for magic or summoner as it has none of the stuff those classes need. that and the weapons you get from it also kinda suck and are boring generic weapons. melee and ranged in this game are boring and repetitive and summoner and magic dont even rlly get anything, ESP summoner. the only way to get fun weapons in this game is to farm enemies or get them from bosses, and if that boss doesnt have a weapon of your type? enjoy playing even more of the game with the basic ahh bat tome (i legit spent 12 hours of the game with the first summon you get for choosing summoner). the worst part is that the devs are just kinda ignoring it??? and are focusing all of their time on more automation so you can get that boring set of generic scarlet armor even faster or something!!!!!! (genuinly what is the point of the automation). this game feels like its lacking the stuff that a game of its type needs to be fun and its trying too hard to be factorio or satisfactory.
PLEASE play this blind bc exploring each outer biome is like multiple spiritual experiences at once
Reviews sourced from Steam. All reviews belong to their respective authors.
Data sourced from RAWG, Steam, IGDB, CheapShark, Wikipedia, HLTB, and GX Corner. Sources: rawg, steam, cheapshark, igdb, wikipedia.
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