Core Keeper

Travel deep underground as you unravel secrets and discover precious materials in the highly addictive Core Keeper. Taking hints from some of the most popular survival games available — but delivering a unique experience all the same — this game is perfect for players who are looking for a new game to sate their crafting and survival needs.

With a massive scope and charming sprite visuals, Core Keeper is pretty much everything a fan of modern indie survival games has been looking for. Add to that the option to play in multiplayer mode and you’ll get yourself one of the most addictive games we’ve seen in a while.

Building and Mining

Have you ever found yourself digging a hole to the center of the Earth in Minecraft just for fun? Well, Core Keeper is a game that’s built virtually around that basic premise. Your main task will be to explore a massively sprawling mine, gathering resources and picking up valuable items to make your home base grow bigger.

At its core, the game is similar to many other instant survival hits like Terraria and Stardew Valley — it even features a similarly charming retro visual presentation. That said, to think that Core Keeper could be considered derivative would be a grave disservice to the work that developers Pugstorm have clearly put on display here.

For starters, Core Keeper puts so much more emphasis on character and story development than most survival games. This makes the world of the game feel like you’re stepping foot into a grand adventure, rather than just mining your way out of an endless series of unremarkable tunnels.

While the crop farming and mining elements hardly bring anything new to the table, there’s no denying that Core Keeper’s gameplay loop is as addictive as it is enjoyable. Searching for loot and farming better resources are made all the more important whenever it’s time to face one of the game’s massive — and insanely challenging — bosses.

2D Visuals and Multiplayer

As far as 2D survival sims go, Core Keeper prefers to keep things simple rather than go too overboard with its visuals. Don’t expect to find anything too visually interesting here, even if the sprite art and character designs are clearly top-notch.

There’s a sense of deja vu that emanates from almost every aspect of the game’s visuals. We’re not saying that Stardew Valley created this look, but the visual similarities between that game and Core Keeper are more than enough to make more than one player raise an eyebrow.

Where Core Keeper shines, however, is in its unique implementation of 8-player multiplayer. Join up to seven friends and brave the caves together in an epic adventure, as you decide to either work together or keep all the best loot to yourself. It’s a clever twist on the old survival formula, and it helps this game to keep things interesting for a while.

For those players that are more interested in a relaxed playthrough, Core Keeper offers plenty of sandbox modes that should appease the more creatively-inclined players out there.

Pros

• Great sense of exploration
• Addictive gameplay loop will keep you hooked for hours
• Amazing multiplayer mode

Cons

• Visually unimpressive for the most part
• Feels a bit too similar to other games in its genre