It’s not a genre I play a whole lot of, but I really can see the appeal of a survival game. Starting from nothing and scraping by is just such a cool way to begin a game, and I’ve had a lot of fun fighting dinosaurs in ARK and avoiding wolves in The Long Dark over the years. Admittedly my favourites in this genre tend to lean a little into the harrowing side, be that because of the harsh reality of life in snowy Canada or because of the other players on a dinosaur island. The idea of cosier survival appeals more as I grow old and weary, and that’s exactly what I got from Core Keeper on the Switch 2.
Core Keeper is a successful and beloved survival game, but for me the Switch 2 version was my entry point. I was first tasked with choosing my starting class, which admittedly just means you’ll have a few levels up in a specific skill and a fancy item or two. I opted for the ranger, because I figured a bow would serve me well. Then from a top down perspective I was dropped into a big underground cave with one main goal, survival. Turns out that’s not too difficult though, and before I knew it I had crafted myself a bit of armour, some torches and a crafting table next to a pretty lake. Life seemed pretty sweet underground.
To access new and exciting tools I needed some ore, and really that’s what you’ll spend a lot of your time in Core Keeper searching for. Basic copper ore was easy enough to find, glittering in the dark and easy enough to get to by swinging your pick through a few blocks. Then after turning this into bars with my new smelter, I was able to make a copper crafting table and loads of new stuff. One of the new creations needed tin though, and this began a loop of ore collecting that sent me across a huge sprawling map of blocks and baddies.
Your world in Core Keeper is absolutely massive, and like any survival game is open to be explored in all directions. As you wander further though you’ll start to find more danger, like little mushroom men or giant worms. Combat is simple enough but has plenty of options, from swords and bows to bombs and magic. For a long time I just enjoyed running in and slashing like I was playing a retro Zelda game, but once you find more exciting methods of dispatching enemies like summoning minions it’s hard to ignore that option.
As well as smaller enemies there are a ton of bosses you’ll find on your adventure. These require way more thought to beat, and even some attack pattern memorisation in some cases. To accomplish some of the bigger overarching goals of the game you’ll have to overcome these more challenging obstacles, but there are at least plenty of ways to get stronger if you’re struggling and other distractions to lean into otherwise.
Like any good survival game, Core Keeper has a shed load of activities you can spend dozens of hours obsessing over. Making your base is perhaps the most intricate of these, with all sorts of decorations, building materials and even electricity to manage. You can even get NPCs to move into the houses you make if they’re up to their standard, which is a fun task in its own right.
Alongside the building you can also cook, because man’s gotta eat. Different edible ingredients can be slapped together in your oven, and all sorts of interesting effects can be granted if you combine the right ones. There’s also fishing which helps when you’re in need of meatier ingredients, farming, and even raising your own livestock. There were plenty of sessions I had with Core Keeper where I had every intention of exploring a dangerous new biome for valuable materials, and I ended up creating a new vegetable patch and crafting fancy rugs for the house instead.
The things you do in Core Keeper all feel massively rewarding, and a large reason for that is because you can level all these activities up. There’s a massive selection of skill trees for all these little jobs, be it melee combat, mining, fishing, or just running around. As you level you’ll get to put points into the skill trees to improve your abilities, and it’s just another wonderful hook that makes it hard to ever want to put the game down.
As you’d hope, the game runs flawlessly on the Switch 2 too. After a small load on creating your world, the game is silky smooth and open for all your underground exploring needs. Even in handheld mode it’s easy to see all the elements you need to play the game, and the controls are nice and intuitive on the Joy-Cons.
There’s so much to love about Core Keeper, and only really a few issues at all worth mentioning. Some of the bosses feel like quite big difficulty spikes, and for a game that feels pretty easygoing I wasn’t always in the mood for that. Not all of the little tasks are created equal either, and I must admit I ignored some pretty much entirely after my first session (sorry fishing).
Core Keeper is one of the most compelling survival games I’ve ever played, and it’s a perfect fit for the Switch 2. You can lose hours to its underground world whether you play alone or with a group of friends, and it’s easy to get obsessed with base building and crafting. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to delete this off my Switch 2, and that’s about as big a compliment as I can give a game with how full my storage is.
