Core Keeper
Happy Holidays from Core Keeper!
Whether you've been sharing your bases over on the Discord, teaming up with friends in multiplayer, or telling us what you think here on Steam, you’ve helped make Core Keeper’s community something truly special, and we hope you know how much you mean to us. Looking ahead, we’re very excited to be bringing you more updates in 2025 – starting with the release of ‘Bags & Blasts’, a major content update that we can’t wait to share. Keep an eye out for more details as we enter the new year!
We’ll be taking a little rest over the festive period to ensure we come back full of energy in January. So, from all of us here at Core Keeper, we’re wishing you all happy holidays and a wonderful New Year!
Notes From the Underground #002
A localised transcript of this journal entry has been provided below the image.
Notes From the Underground #2 - Warning Shots
"If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that the underground is teeming with life! I’ve encountered all sorts on my travels, from friendly dog-like creatures all the way to whatever that disgusting chunk of flesh in Larva Hive was. It’s the Cavelings I’m most interested in, though. At first, I thought they were primitive in nature, especially the Brutes, but they seem much more advanced than I’ve been giving them credit for.
I’d been exploring the Wilderness for a few days before I started running into these ancient stone houses. I can’t tell if the Cavelings built them or if they simply disposed of whoever did. Outside one of the ruins was another of those Cicada husks, but this was a bit different than the one I encountered in the Clay Caves – more mature, perhaps?
Just as I was about to investigate, I heard something ping off of my armour and I was nearly knocked off of my feet. Behind me, wearing a ghillie suit to disguise itself as a bush, was a Caveling Hunter! More and more Cavelings started to appear, outnumbering me ten to one. I got the feeling that they didn’t want me getting any closer to the husk and, well, who was I to argue?"
Comments in the margins read:
“Sneaky!” above a drawing of a Caveling Hunter
A First Look at Core Keeper’s 2025 Content Updates
You may have spotted a brand-new graphic on our Steam store page with information on some (but by no means all) of our content updates for the next year. We’re very excited to announce the title of our first major update, “Bags & Blasts”, coming early 2025. We’ll be sharing a little more information on the minor update and our second major update of 2025 in due course, so keep an eye out!
You may also have spotted the first installment of our Notes From the Underground series. This content offers a deep dive into the world of Core Keeper as you know it, but may also hold secrets about what’s yet to come 👀
Developing Core Keeper is an adventure of its own, and we love that we get to do so with such a fantastic community by our side. As always, you can keep up with all the latest news, information, and announcements over on the Core Keeper X channel, Discord, and all-new BlueSky account!
1.0.1.11 Stability Patch Notes
Other:
- Updated descriptions of a few items.
- Fixed a few text and translation issues.
- Replaced the vibration toggle with a vibration intensity slider in the Gameplay settings.
Performance:
- Decreased CPU usage on machines with lots of threads by capping the number of worker threads used by default. Each thread has some overhead cost, which impacts the main thread, and that easily becomes a bottleneck.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed several networking issues that would happen when the internet connection was lost and reacquired while the game was running.
- Fixed some trees missing their leaves.
- Using the Rift Lens in front of pillars no longer causes clipping with the player sprite.
- Removing a map marker should no longer cause flickering for a moment.
- The Phantom Spark should no longer mispredict causing multiple ghosts to be spawned on the client’s side.
- Beam weapons should now be able to damage walls from any angle.
- Fixed an issue where the animation for players getting damaged would sometimes play even when no damage was being taken.
- Colossal Amoebas no longer get unloaded while they are still in view.
- Fixed Digging Damage stat not being applied when digging blocks out of the ground.
- Worm enemies and Ghorm should now be targetable by pets & minions.
- Structures that occupy multiple tiles should no longer allow placement when a player is standing between two tiles.
- Caveling Toilets in Malugaz’s boss dungeon no longer spawn with an uncomfortably placed Stone Pillar inside of them.
- The Core will no longer repeat its wake-up dialogue after the player has defeated all titans and hydras.
- The entrance points of a dungeon can no longer spawn on top of each other. Most notably, this fixes an issue where the Azeos dungeon’s Ancient Waypoint was overwritten by the dungeon’s other entrances.
- Urschleim should no longer automatically respawn when re-loading a world where it was defeated.
- It is no longer possible for enemies to engage with the Mammoth Fossil that could be found in a scene in the Desert of Beginnings.
- Reduced the speed and lifespan of the Core Commander's orbs’ projectiles.
- Projectiles should now collide with and deal damage to players along their entire path.
Explorers, the 2024 Steam Awards are here! 🎉
As we approach the end of an incredible year, we’re reflecting on all the amazing moments we’ve shared with you, especially the 1.0 launch of Core Keeper. Your unwavering support, feedback, and passion have been the foundation of everything we’ve built together. Core Keeper has always been about bringing people together, and we believe it’s truly a game that’s better with friends.
That’s why we’d be thrilled if you considered nominating Core Keeper for this year’s Steam Awards “Better with Friends” category!
From our Early Access launch in March 2022 to the milestone of 1.0, we’ve poured our hearts into making Core Keeper the best it can be, and the journey is far from over. With exciting plans for 2025 and beyond, we can’t wait to share what’s next.
If Core Keeper has been a part of your adventures, memories, or gaming highlights this year, we’d be honoured to have your nomination. Making it into the top five means moving on to the voting round during the Steam Winter Sale, so every nomination counts!
Thank you, Explorers, for being part of this journey with us. Core Keeper wouldn’t be the game it is today without your love and support. Let’s see where we can go together! 🌟
1.0.1.7 SDK Update Patch
- Updated the Unity engine from version 2022.3.20 to 2022.3.50.
- Updated the Sentry SDK from version 1.2.0 to 2.3.0. Sentry is used for automated error and crash reports.
- Updated the PlayFab SDK.
Bug fixes:
- The Unity update fixes a long-standing issue with headphones not working correctly on Steam Deck and Linux.
Troubleshooting: A Reminder About Mods and Graphics Drivers!
Black Screens / Crashing on Startup
Almost all Core Keeper updates come with a whole host of behind-the-scenes adjustments to core game files. Because of this, game mods often become unstable/non-functional and need to be updated to function with the current version of the game. Please bear in mind that the Core Keeper development team has no influence over or ability to update mods for the game and that these are the sole responsibility of the mod creators.
If you are experiencing black screens or crashes when starting Core Keeper, and you have previously played the game with mods installed, we would recommend that you manually delete all mod-related files. We are aware that, on startup, players have the option to launch Core Keeper without mods, but we occasionally see issues with black screens or crashes persisting even with this launch option, which can lead players to assume the issue is with the game as opposed to their mods.
To manually delete mod files, please navigate to the C:\Users\Public\mod.io\5289 folder. From here, you can choose to make a copy as a backup (and store it somewhere outside of the game files, such as your desktop or documents folder), and then delete everything inside the 5289 folder.
You should then be able to launch the game and test whether or not this fix has worked. If everything works correctly, you should be able to reinstall any mods that are compatible with the current version of the game. If you’re still experiencing a black screen or crashing on startup, please feel free to submit a bug report and let us know that you tried deleting mod files.
Unable to Create New Worlds
Another issue we frequently see bug reports about is the game immediately crashing after creating a new world. This issue is most likely caused by outdated graphics drivers.
Oftentimes, players don’t realise they are not using the latest drivers because they believe the driver support assistants on their PC will keep them up to date. We strongly advise you to visit the website of your graphics card manufacturer (such as Intel or NVIDIA) and manually download and install the latest drivers for your PC, as opposed to downloading the driver support assistant.
Once your graphics drivers are up to date, please launch the game and create a new world to see if the issue has been resolved. If it has not, we ask that you submit a bug report and let us know that you have made sure your graphics drivers are up to date.
The Core Keeper development team reads every single bug report submitted by our community, and we are continuously working to ensure the game is at its best with fixes on our end. Whenever we run into reports of issues we think are being impacted by factors outside of our control (such as mods or graphics drivers!), we’ll do our best to make a post about it here so you have the information you need to do some troubleshooting.
Notes From the Underground #001
We recently happened upon the journal from a wayward Explorer, setting foot into the underground for the first time. Join us as we explore their story and perhaps even learn more about the underground than is currently known…
Notes From the Underground #1 - Danger Around Every Corner!
“Honestly? I have no clue how long I’ve been down here. Without sunrise and sunset time just…disappears. I feel like I should be trying to find a way out, but every time I think about climbing upward, I end up digging deeper – there’s just too much down here to leave behind.
The place I woke up in felt safe enough, then I hit a whole new area that I’m calling “The Clay Caves” (I get naming rights for discovering it, right?). Things got dicey pretty quickly – it turns out Slimes and Shroomen are the least of my worries. I found myself being chased by HUGE larvae, drawn to the slightest flicker of torchlight. My little wooden sword barely leaves a mark on 'em.
I had to make a run for it, and that’s when I found something incredible. An empty husk, massive, like it’d been shed by a giant cicada; way bigger than any of the bugs I’d run into before. I don’t know where the creature that shed it is hiding, or if it’s even still alive, but something has been bothering me. Don’t cicadas usually emerge in big groups to lay their eggs? Does that mean there are more of these things out there just waiting? Whatever the case, I should probably make a better sword.”
Comments in the margins read:
“Red = not friendly!” beside a drawing of a Red Slime.
“Sword upgrade ideas…Tin? Copper? Slime??”
Community Wrap-Up November 15th
Mysterious Note
What's the mysterious note and where did it come from? It looks like it was torn from somewhere. Hmm, we have a feeling this could be the beginning of something...perhaps a deeper look into the lore of Core Keeper?
Aquarium & Terrarium
Did you know that we added two new decorative objects in our latest minor update? Say hello to the Aquarium and Terrarium! Which one is your favourite?
Wilderness Concepts
Azeos' Wilderness is a lush biome filled with life and resources. It's also home to the deadly Mold Dungeon! There's so much to explore, but would you believe we had ideas that didn't quite make the cut? It's true. Check out this concept art.
100 Days of Survival + BOSS BATTLES
Wow, Jade PG CRAFTED has set him self a real challenge this time! Can he survive 100 days in Core Keeper AND beat every single boss?
Undertale Pixel Art
We're always blown away by the art our community members create in the Core Keeper map 🤯 Big thanks to Menacing Maxamillion for sharing this awesome Undertale sprite art with us in the Discord.
Core Keeper Inspired Music
Who knew we had such a talented composer in the Core Keeper Discord? Big shout out to Loaka for sharing these adorable Core-Keeper inspired compositions with us.
Follow us on X: http://www.twitter.com/corekeepergame
Join the Conversation on Discord: http://discord.gg/corekeeper
1.0.1.4 Stability Patch Notes
Gameplay:
- Gear can now be equipped from the hotbar by right-clicking.
- Made more crafting stations salvageable, including anvils and smelters.
Other:
- Save files are now checked for invalid tiles when loaded. This allows worlds that have invalid tiles, for example as the result of a bug or faulty mod, to be recovered by restarting the game.
Performance:
- The flame particles in the burning condition effect now update on a worker thread instead of the main thread.
- Urschleim’s particles are now correctly disabled on Low particle quality.
- The electric beam effect no longer updates when the effect doesn’t appear on screen.
- Sprinkler animations no longer cause excessive memory allocations.
Bug fixes:
- Fixed an issue where switching quickly between crafting stations could cause the UI to become unresponsive until the game was restarted.
- Button hint icons no longer appear on the loading screen.
- Ore boulders no longer use the wrong ground sprites in the Dirt biome.
- Fixed an issue that made it look like crystal gemstones (Jungle Emeralds, Ocean Sapphires and Desert Rubies) were dropped, even though they weren’t.
- Fixed an issue with mispredicting tile destruction when using beam weapons.
- The inventory shortcuts information window can now be opened and closed more reliably.
- Ore boulder spawn rates no longer scale by Biome Chaos instead of Ore Density in the world generation settings.
- Replaced broken Abyss Trees in the Oasis Settlement scene that contains a Geyser in the Desert biome. This fix will only affect newly generated instances of this scene.
- Slime bosses’ jump attacks now destroy non-wall tiles like roots and fences.
- Map markers and pings are now correctly centered at the cursor position.
- Cross circuits now correctly light up even when the electricity power is very low.
- Azeos now creates ground tiles where they die to ensure the boss chest can always spawn.
- Stalagmites hidden under the ground no longer block roots from spreading.
- Galaxite Walls can no longer be placed on pits since they do not have a ground variant.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Mold Cicada to drop a duplicate of itself when being broken.
- Fixed an issue where Lava Butterflies would consistently miss the player.
Playfab improvements:
- Improved Cartography Table to not cause lagging anymore when used.
- Fixed Epic join issues when recreating session ID.
- Added "Too many join requests" messages when spamming refresh button in "join session"- menu