Core Keeper is a survival game I actually like
Rhianne Ward
Note: this post has been transferred over from my old Wordpress blog. I could go through the trouble of reformatting everything with supporting images and italicisation and whatever else, but I don't really have time to do all that unfortunately, and I'd prefer to spend my time writing new things than labouring over the old. So, if anything looks a little weird or messy, that's why. I hope you enjoy it regardless!
Core Keeper held my attention for longer than I expected. Not that I was expecting to dislike it, per se, but rather that it seemed like a very familiar game to me. Mining, crafting, some light combat… you get the picture. And yeah, Core Keeper is basically that, with some slight differences that made all the difference.
For one, a lot of the crafting mechanics are mercifully streamlined. Gone is the need to have both coal and ore to make metal ingots; now all you need is the ore, and so long as you have a furnace, the job’s sorted. I can understand the appeal of that kind of mechanical minutia, but given the sheer amounts of hours I’ve dedicated to Minecraft in the past, the constant cycle of being low on coal is thankfully over.
I like the clear objectives too! It’s very obvious what you need to do right from the start – kill three bad guys, power up the core, and skedaddle back to the surface world – and that made starting out quite breezy. On top of that, finding and killing my first major boss felt really good, like I was gaining ground against this dark and perilous world. I tend to find it difficult to care when I’m playing survival games, because so many of them lack a strong narrative hook to entice me or make it feel like going through the arduous process of survival is actually going to go somewhere. Core Keeper’s storytelling simplicity is what made it compelling for me. You need to slay the beasts, but how you do that and when is entirely up to you.
That’s where play expression truly lies. The map is essentially just one massive block of earth and stone, and from the start you are expected to dig in any direction you want. It gives this sense that the world is truly your canvas to paint your own journey upon, which I really liked. It’s always really satisfying to check the map, look at all the interconnected tunnel systems, and think, ‘I did that’. I’m certain that my world and the way I chose to navigate it is going to look quite different than anyone else’s, and that’s really cool!
However, I think ultimately what’s caused me to drift away from this game is the same feeling I get with almost every survival game I play, and that’s a lack of forward momentum. At a certain point, you’re kinda just doing the same sort of thing over and over again. The usual cycle is that I run out of a specific metal, I go mine some more, maybe get killed in the process and have to do a death run to my grave site, scamper back to my abode, make whatever it is I needed, then move onto the next project and for all this to repeat. I believe this game has ways of automating the mining process to alleviate some of the tedium, but ultimately that’s going to end up being its own situation and I don’t really have the drive to see it through.
Not to mention, without mining, what would be left to do in this game? The other half of the experience is the adventuring, wherein you delve into caves and settlements in search of treasure, and come across all sorts of creatures. Unfriendly ones, mostly. That’s where we come to the combat, and I reveal that I am not a fan of it. The weapons all feel very floaty, and enemies don’t operate in very interesting ways. They tend to just throw themselves at you and spray out damage until one of you dies. Admittedly, that’s also how I tend to get the job done, but I would never expect anyone to meet me at my low standard of operation.
Enemies also do this thing that feels like a bug but may also just be how the game is where out of nowhere a huge group of around a dozen will randomly all decide to aggro on you at once and run in from offscreen. To be fair, it’s a sound strategy that’s led to me dying more than a few times, but in the context of a video game, it’s not a lot of fun! It ends up disincentivising thorough exploration as the threat of being unfairly ganged up on hangs heavy over the expedition, and it’s very easy to miss important resources in the panic. Maybe that’s the point, but it can be frustrating to do the usual ore run and get chased out before you even manage to find any strains. Maybe it would be more bearable if the combat was actually fun, but it isn’t, so it isn’t.
Ultimately, Core Keeper is really good. It’s a gorgeous game that embraces a style all its own, and I appreciate that aspect of it. The inspirations are clear, but the game filters the parts that don’t work out and adds its own ideas, which results in a unique and creative experience overall. I hope that now this game is out of Early Access, these developers are able to work on new projects where they can hone their best ideas or experiment with new ones. Though given the kind of game this is, I have a feeling they’ll be supporting this one with updates for a good while longer, assuming it’s popular which I believe it is! I may come back to it someday, but as it stands, I enjoyed my time with it and I am happy to leave it at that.