Love is in the airand in the underground. Were delighted to announce that were bringing you something very special this February in the form of our Quality of Love update! Part seasonal event, part update, you can expect lots of new content and fixes coming to Core Keeper, with some new additions remaining in game even after the Valentines seasonal event has ended! Whether youre a mushy romantic who wants to see pretty pink flowers in the underground or youre hankering for some fresh new features (musical instruments, anyone?) and visual improvements to the game, there are lots of reasons to get excited about this one.

When is Core Keepers Quality of Love Update Releasing?

The Quality of Love update will be launching on the 8th of February, with our Valentines seasonal event running until the 28th! As we mentioned above, some of the content from this update will remain permanently available even after the Valentines seasonal event has ended and weve been working hard on quality-of-life adjustments as well as optimisations that should improve the overall performance of the game.

What Can We Expect in the Quality of Love Update?

Great question, and the answer is a lot! While the Quality of Love Update isnt a major content update like The Sunken Sea or The Desert of Beginnings, we think youll be pleased with the new additions and changes weve made to the game

Major Changes to Lighting and Rendering

Were making some major changes to the way things like lighting and rendering work across Core Keeper, which should improve performance while giving you more control over your visual experience of the underground. Heres where it gets a little technical Core Keeper currently uses Unitys Built-In Render Pipeline, which we customised as much as possible to fit the needs of the game. Since this render-pipeline was designed to function with many different types of games, we soon discovered that there were various features and functions that we wanted for the rendering in Core Keeper that it just didnt support. Because of this, we decided to completely rewrite our graphics pipeline as a custom Scriptable Render Pipeline. The result? Full control over how everything is rendered in the game and improvements to performance and framerate! If that wasnt technical enough for you, a full breakdown on the lighting changes will be coming in another Steam post soon. In simple terms, this means Core Keeper is going to look a whole lot nicer with the potential to run much better too!

New Features and Content!

For Valentines, weve added a romantic wash of rose petals to the ground tiles across the underground, and you can expect to find plenty of seasonal items (think Love Letters and Valentines Presents) along with some extra-cute cosmetics and equipment! As in all our seasonal updates, youll also spot a fun, themed variation on the merchant, wholl have some new stock for you to browse.
Were also really excited about a brand-new feature were bringing to the game in the form of musical instruments! Thats right, Explorers can now express themselves creatively by crafting and playing instruments such as Harps, Flutes, and Cellos. Youll also be able to find sheet music in Core Keeper that can be used with the musical instruments to automatically play looping melodies some of which you might just recognise from a few of your other favourite indie games. And thats just the tip of the iceberg! Well be adding new environmental items, features, and mechanics that we cant wait for you to uncover. We think that Quality of Love is the perfect name for this update because we really wanted this to be an expression of our love for the community. A lot of the content youll see in this update is the result of community feedback, and we hope youll enjoy experiencing it as much as we enjoyed creating it. With just a week to go, make sure you join the conversation and let us know what youre most excited about on our official Twitter and Discord channels!