Core Keeper News

It has been an amazing year so far and it’s hard to believe that we’re approaching 2025! We’ll always remember 2024 as the year that Core Keeper launched in 1.0, but now it’s time to look ahead at what’s in store for the future of our underground adventure.

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!

[h2]Other:[/h2]

• 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.
  

[h2]Performance:[/h2]

• 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.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes:[/h2]

• 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.
  

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! 🌟

Other:

• 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.
  

Hey there Explorers, we wanted to let you know about some fixes for two issues that have been coming up in bug reports recently. These are simple fixes that can be performed by the player if you’re experiencing black screens or crashing after the game has updated or if you’re having trouble creating a new world.

[h2]Black Screens / Crashing on Startup[/h2]

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.

[h2]Unable to Create New Worlds[/h2]

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.