Core Keeper Review (Switch)

About a decade ago, not long after Minecraft was discovered by mainstream audiences, it felt like every other week you’d see another new sandbox survival project from developers both large and small looking to cash in on the craze. Now that’s been replaced by new trends like deckbuilders and extraction shooters, though there are still some worthwhile fresh sandbox releases to be found every now and then. One such game is Core Keeper, which has been in early access for the past two years on PC and only recently hit its 1.0 release state. Fortunately, the wait was worth it, as Core Keeper is deeply enjoyable and addictive.

Gameplay in Core Keeper follows the traditional survival-sandbox game template wherein you push out slowly from a rugged base of operations and slowly learn more about your world as you mine materials, fight enemies, and upgrade equipment in a constant battle against the overwhelming forces of nature.

Starting out, all you can do is punch things and build a basic workbench as you stumble around in the darkness, but hours in you’ll have all kinds of automated systems in place to expedite exploration and crafting as you set and accomplish increasingly more ambitious tasks. Of course, if you don't want to constantly manage diminishing resources, there's a creative mode where you can just go nuts with all the tools and block types, though it feels like survival mode is how this was intended to be played.

Like all great survival games, Core Keeper’s structure walks that fine line where it feels neither too open-ended nor too narrow in its scope. If you’re a more creative player and you just want to spend your time building the most aesthetically pleasing base you can, there’s nothing stopping you from whiling away your time on cosmetic enhancements to your cave. Yet if you want to play it more like a straightforward action RPG, you can do that, slowly building up your character and equipment through repeated sorties out into the untamed dark that go just a little bit further each time.

We appreciated how Core Keeper doesn’t lean too hard on you to play any one way—there’s no time limit (aside from your dwindling hunger meter) pushing you to do anything urgently, and though there are clear objectives to fulfil that will open the world further and unlock more for your character, you don’t have to engage in any one system or gameplay mechanic if it’s not your cup of tea.

To reinforce the idea of playing your own way, Core Keeper employs an interesting skill system that rewards you with stat boosts and new passives for doing virtually any specific task. Mine enough ore or stone, and your character will progressively level up that stat to do more damage and become more efficient when mining. Craft a lot of items on your workbench and you’ll slowly raise the chances that you’ll produce duplicates of items you make. Heck, even walking enough builds up your character’s movement stat and decreases how much your hunger depletes as you walk. After a stat jumps up a few levels, you’ll get a skill point that you can allocate in a small skill tree dedicated to that activity which helps increase your productivity further.

We appreciated how this system ensures that there’s no wasted time or effort in Core Keeper—it’s a bit like a Rune Factory game in that it’s difficult to go for more than a few minutes without some stat or skill getting a small boost from whatever you’re doing. Those little improvements often make other closely related tasks a little bit easier in some indirect ways, which really helps to avoid the sense that you’re playing Core Keeper ‘wrong’ if you focus mostly on just one or two activities.

As you forage for materials, you’ll inevitably run into some hostile native life in the cave and this is where the surprisingly great combat comes into play. Over time, you’ll amass a collection of melee and ranged weapons to defend yourself against your foes, and we enjoyed how responsive and sharp combat felt. Things like aiming a ranged weapon with the right stick or timing a block with your shield at the last moment to pull off a clutch parry just feel right and make enemy encounters feel dynamic and interesting without pulling too much focus away from the overall loop of exploring and collecting resources.

The world itself is randomly generated, so venturing beyond your base carries with it a real sense of excitement as you slowly push to find more loot in a genuinely uncharted world. Every step into the unknown will automatically fill out more of your map, and you can helpfully update your map at any time with various markers and notes to remind yourself of points of interest and things to revisit later. Regardless of what direction you walk in, stumbling upon a new biome always brings with it a rush of joy as you’re faced with all kinds of new enemies, ores, livestock, treasures, and other secrets to slowly come to grips with.

If we had one recommendation, it would be to avoid online guides or wikis that explain various secrets and items in greater detail. Core Keeper is that rare sort of game that excels in gamifying mystery, constantly dangling secrets and oddities that beckon you to keep stepping out of your comfort zone. There’s just enough information given in-game to give you a good sense of what you’re currently capable of and what you could choose to do next, but it never totally gives the game away, leaving a lot of things open to interpretation and experimentation. There’s simply no matching that excitement when you finally manage to build an upgraded workbench and discover a heap of strange new tools and contraptions to try crafting, and though you can play more ‘efficiently’ if you check guides, there’s something deeply satisfying in slowly figuring it out for yourself and gradually bringing this seemingly untamable and vast world to heel.

Core Keeper is perfectly enjoyable in single-player, but those of you who prefer a more social experience will be pleased to know that you can play with up to three other friends, with some caveats. There’s no split-screen local play nor is there any local wireless, so your only option for connecting with friends is via a shared world that you set up online. Though this feels like an inelegant solution, we still appreciated the included option for multiplayer, as it can change up the game quite a bit when you can divvy up tasks and cover more ground with all the extra help.

The only real complaint that we have with Core Keeper is that the UI is clearly designed for a keyboard and mouse control setup. Navigating menus with the sticks and D-pad works fine enough, but it feels just a bit more cumbersome than it needs to and this can lead to more frustration during longer play sessions as you’re constantly jumping in and out of menus and inventories that feel overly fiddly. Frankly, it’s tough to imagine how Pugstorm could’ve done this aspect better without completely redesigning Core Keeper from the ground up, but all the same, if you're easily irritated by a UI that doesn't feel totally tailor-made for consoles, you may want to consider the PC version if that’s an option.

Visually, Pugstorm does an outstanding job of portraying a hi-bit game world that feels retro while still having some modern touches. Elements like the dynamic lighting remind you that this a game built for modern hardware, while the pixel art is top-notch and reminded us quite a bit of Stardew Valley in its design. And though the whole game is apparently taking place in some deep, dark cave, there’s a lot of variety in the biomes that you can explore, with each having a distinctive colour palette and atmosphere to set it apart.

These visuals are then matched by a soundtrack that gives Core Keeper a distinctly cosy vibe, as you’re serenaded with relaxing tracks that give your work and exploration a softer texture. There’s a particular sense of magic and wonder to many of these tunes, making the unknown world feel friendly while also encouraging you to press deeper into its depths to uncover its secrets. If you have the chance, headphones really help to highlight the more subtle layers of the music and immerse you that much more into the cavernous world.