Title: Core Keeper
Genres: Co-op, sandbox, survival, crafting, RPG
Released: August 27, 2024
Developer: Pugstorm
Available on: Xbox One, Series X|S, Switch, PS4/5, Steam, and Xbox PC
Price: $19.99
Xbox Play Anywhere: ❌
Xbox Game Pass: ❌
Oftentimes, when we describe new games, we look for older titles that gamers are familiar with to compare that title to. We could tell you that Core Keeper is “Stardew Valley meets Spelunky” or “Terraria meets Satisfactory”, and that would be accurate in some ways. But while this comparison helps to provide a foundational understanding of what the new game is like, it does little to actually convey what’s actually going on in this top-down pixel art sandbox developed by Pugstorm and published by Fireshrine Games.
The central chamber housing the Core is surrounded by walls of dirt, and you must find the resources to craft useful tools like pickaxes and shovels to create pathways and tunnels through the cavern. Likewise, you will need to level up your crafting, mining, and combat skills to unlock new equipment like armor and weapons. It’s not all fungi slashing and dirt removal, though. Core Keeper blends in wholesome survival gameplay like farming, animal care taking, and base building into the mix. The best part? You can invite up to eight of your besties to build and explore along with you.
Each time you launch into a new world in Core Keeper, the massive world is procedurally generated to create a brand-new environment. While some gameplay elements like boss locations and specific equipment can be found within a set number of tiles from the core, the biome and exact region they can be found in changes from play through to play through. Their world will look completely different to yours, though. The lush forest biome, for example, may be in the south on your map but to the northeast on your friends’ map.
Your custom characters can transfer from world to world when playing with friends, however. So if you’re already armored up and packing some of the best of Core Keeper’s available weaponry on your save, you can jump into your friends’ world and help them advance with your better gear. We all have that one friend who accidentally destroys home base with a badly placed explosive, so you may want to consider starting from scratch with a brand-new character and exploring a whole-new world with your friends while your home base stays intact on a different save slot.
Core Keeper’s expansion across multiple genres makes it an excellent multiplayer option, giving large groups of players the opportunity to explore the entirety of the game while focusing on gameplay elements that appeal most to them. The one group member who has a mission to annihilate every enemy they encounter can still get the full experience of Core Keeper and its lore while another member of the team stays back at the base and crafts replacement weapons or stat boosting meals.
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The addition of automation mechanics adds an extra layer of depth to the base-building gameplay. Core Keeper’s world is a sight to behold, but it will wear thin on player nerves to constantly run back across thousands of tiles to return to a storage box because you picked up too many mushrooms. To combat resource management fatigue, Core Keeper offers players the chance to build complicated conveyor belt systems that can move resources across the entirety of the game world.
An automated drill running on a battery can easily mine gold while a crane picks up the dropped resource and transfers it to a series of conveyor belts that then take it all the way to the base before another claw machine transfers the gold into a dedicated storage box, for example.
At its heart, Core Keeper is a game that celebrates cooperation with friends and gives players the chance to carve out their own little place in the darkness to grow. The hostile world is slowly tamed and reclaimed to become a thriving base, and while some late-game bosses pose significant challenges, they also provide an opportunity for genuine collaboration between the player group.
Pugstorm and Fireshrine Games initially revealed Core Keeper in 2021 before launching the game into early access on Steam in 2022. During its early development, the development team introduced multiple new features like holiday-themed seasonal events, a Terraria crossover, and two of the game’s major biomes.
In 2024, Core Keeper was released on consoles alongside its 1.0 launch and was even available on Xbox and Xbox PC as part of Xbox Game Pass, though it has since left the subscription service. If you missed out on experiencing Core Keeper during its Game Pass stint, don’t worry — it’s currently on sale for 40% off during the Xbox Countdown Sale.
The developers have continued to introduce new content to Core Keeper even after announcing that a new game, Kyora, is in the works. A major free title update, known as Void & Voltage, is expected to come to Core Keeper on Xbox and other platforms on January 28, 2026.
Void and Voltage will add an all new biome to the map called Breaker’s Reach, as well as new weapon types, including a Flamethrower and Minigun. Players who prefer more automation for their resource farms can also look forward to new tools like the critter catcher, seed extractor, and conveyor belt splitter. Core Keeper is already a delightful and dense adventure RPG that can take over a hundred hours to fully explore, and the next update is expected to pack in even more exciting content.
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