There’s no shortage of survival crafting games around, to put it lightly, and it takes an awful lot for a game to stand out in the genre. Fortunately for anyone looking for their trip into the mines, Core Keeper is just the right mix of classic and new ideas, and it launches on Xbox Game Pass this week.
Core Keeper has already made a name for itself on Steam, where it’s been in early access since 2022. Along with its Game Pass debut, this week marks the game’s 1.0 release on PC, after it’s racked up more than 25,000 reviews giving it a Very Positive rating.
It’s easy to see what all the fuss is about. Core Keeper blends together the best elements of games like Terraria, Valheim, and Stardew Valley, all without feeling derivative of anything that’s come before. The game’s setup is short and to the point: basically, you’ve fallen down a big hole and found yourself in a massive underground labyrinth. How clumsy! I say it’s a labyrinth, but at the start, you actually find yourself in one secluded chamber, and it’s up to you to craft the labyrinth yourself.
Your first step is to start punching the walls. Tearing them down one block at a time gives you stone you can later use to build structures of your own, but more importantly, it lets you build a path through the underground world. To get anywhere in Core Keeper, you first need to dig your way through rock, giving players an incredible amount of freedom to shape their world. Do you build yourself an elaborate network of tunnels connecting one biome to the next or clear out as much space as you can to plop down bases and rest stops throughout the cave system?
Dig in any direction and you’ll quickly run into the monsters infesting these underground caverns. It’s essentially up to you to determine how much combat factors into your game, since you can always just dig around them if you’re not in the mood for a fight. Eventually, though, you’ll come up against a series of impressive bosses that are fun to take down and offer some great loot for defeating them. Progressing through the game does require fighting some bosses as well.
But another aspect of Core Keeper makes it much easier for players taking a more pacifistic stance. It features a multiplayer mode for up to eight players at a time, letting you and a gang of friends build out your underground kingdom together. Playing this way, each player can be more specialized, splitting up the crafting, gathering, and fighting duties, or all working together on big projects. As fun as Core Keeper is to play solo, it really shines in multiplayer, where you’re able to mine, build, and explore much more quickly.
For those who prefer to stick to domestic duties, Core Keeper is downright cozy, despite taking place in a cave full of bloodthirsty monsters. Building an expanding network of bases is crucial when you’re exploring the world, but it can also be fun just to chill in one place for a while and set up your subterranean homestead. This is where the Stardew Valley comparison kicks in. With a decently equipped base, you can grow your own food and even set up a kitchen to cook the product of your garden, and gain stat bonuses from consuming your grub.
That’s particularly helpful if you manage to get a crew together to play. Core Keeper has a skill system that lets you improve at any activity you spend enough time in, meaning whichever part of the game captures your attention, you’ll gradually start to specialize in it. With a full group of players, having party members with a diverse set of skills means you can set up your own tiny cave-dwelling society where everyone plays their part.
Players jumping in for Core Keeper’s Game Pass launch will be starting off with the game in its best shape ever. The 1.0 release adds a new biome, along with more character classes and bosses, more loot, and a retooled world generation system that lets players dictate more about the state of the world at the start of the game. Developer Pugstorm still plans to keep adding content past its 1.0 edition, so there should be even more to explore if you stick with the game. Whether you’re drawn to its base building or combat, or you just yearn for the mines, Core Keeper is one of the best new survival games in ages.
