Its time for this years Steam Awards, Explorers, which means we must be approaching the end of 2023! Its been an amazing year for Core Keeper with lots of updates, new content, community activity, and more. Youve been behind us every step of the way, showing your support and sharing your feedback so that we can develop the kind of game we know youll love. In fact, we think its pretty safe to say that Core Keeper is a labour of love from us devs

Which is why we hope we can count on your nominations for Core Keeper in this years Steam Awards Labour of Love category!

Weve been nurturing Core Keeper since our Early Access launch in March 2022, and we think that makes us the perfect candidate for this award. You can nominate us using the form above, and nominations are open from now until the 28th of November. If we make it into the top 5 nominations for our category, then therell be a round of voting during the Steam Winter sale, so keep an eye out. We thought this would also be a good opportunity to review some of Core Keepers highlights since our Early Access launch!

Core Keeper Early Access Highlights

Early Access Launch

This is where it all began for our community. We invited some players into the underground for an open and closed alpha beforehand, but the 8th of March 2022 was our first day in Early Access. It was amazing to see so many players excited to join us on our journey and, by the end of our first two weeks, wed hit half a million downloads!

Our First Seasonal Event

Wed had a couple of patches and hotfixes, but The Great Egg Hunt was our first content update and very first seasonal event after we entered Early Access. Launched in April 2022, we invited Explorers to traverse the underground in search of mysterious eggs that could be used to craft the fabled Golden Egg a unique collectable with a secret function. We got lots of feedback from the community following this event, and this had a huge impact on seasonal events to come.

Dedicated Servers & Improvements to Multiplayer

In May 2022, Core Keepers multiplayer got a major substantial upgrade in the form of dedicated servers! Using Steams server functionality, we gave players the option to operate their own dedicated servers for multiplayer worlds that could be accessed at any time without requiring the host to be in the game. We also updated player-hosted online multiplayer to use Steams networking backend when connecting players, which improved network connections. Oh, and we added a brand-new admin functionality that enabled players to kick people from worlds.

The Sunken Sea

The Sunken Sea, launched in June 2022, was the first major content update for Core Keeper. It featured a brand-new ocean-based biome, a mysterious sub-biome, a terrifying Titan boss, new ore and a new tier of material, and new player-requested tools like Sprinklers and Portals! Itd take us a while to list out all the amazing additions that came with this update, but you can check them out in the patch notes if youd like. We also hit ONE MILLION sales roughly two weeks after this update.

Cozy Caverns, Spooky Seasons, and a Terraria Crossover

In between The Sunken Sea and our next major content update, we enjoyed a minor update, our first Halloween seasonal event, and we even had a Core Keeper x Terraria Crossover! Cozy Caverns brought a whole host of base-building options and accessories, as well as paintbrushes that could be used to change the colour of certain objects. Our Halloween event was truly terrifying, full of tricks and treats, and featured an even creepier variation of the Hive Mother boss. Finally, our Terraria crossover inspired fans from both franchises by bringing King Slime to the world of Core Keeper and introducing an adorable Caveling companion to Terraria.

The Desert of Beginnings

In November of last year, we brought you our second major content update: The Desert of Beginnings. This update introduced a sandy new biome and a super-heated sub-biome filled with a myriad of strange creatures, plant life, minerals, and artefacts. From the new Galaxite Ore all the way to Go Karts that allow you to journey across the underground at top speeds, the Desert of Beginnings added a wealth of new content to the game. As with all of our major updates, this one featured a scary new boss and a whole host of quality-of-life improvements and player-requested features. Check out the patch notes here.

Christmas Content, Quality of Love, Anniversary Celebrations, and more!

Leaving 2022 and entering 2023, Core Keeper saw several minor updates and seasonal events. We hosted our first Christmas and Valentines seasonal events, and our Valentines event included some permanent (non-seasonal) quality-of-life improvements for the game that were particularly proud of! These included major visual improvements to Core Keeper, involving an upgrade to our graphics pipeline, and the addition of playable musical instruments to the game! We celebrated our one-year anniversary in March with an anniversary update and followed this with a little Cherry Blossom event to welcome in spring. Our Easter seasonal event repeated this year with some new additions too. All the while, we were gearing up for our next major content update

Paws & Claws and Creative Mode

This was a hugely-anticipated update for the community who were very excited about the addition of hatchable pets to the game. We launched Paws & Claws in April 2023 and this brought a new meadow-based biome to the game, 5 species of companion pets (each with multiple colour variations), 3 breeds of cattle, and new instruments and sheet music. We also added new decorative items, random events, community features, and more! If that wasnt exciting enough, this update also introduced Core Keepers Creative Mode for the very first time. This was something the community had been looking forward to since day one, and we were overjoyed to be able to implement this before 1.0.

Mod SDK

Core Keeper has always had a vibrant modding community, and it was always our plan to provide them with mod support. In September 2023, we released our very own Mod Software Development Kit, which functions via Unity and can be downloaded here. We also implemented an in-game solution that will allow players to browse and install Core Keeper mods from Mod.io directly to the game!

The Shimmering Frontier

Our most recent major content update was The Shimmering Frontier, which launched in October 2023! Previously known as The Crystal Biome, The Shimmering Frontier was something wed been thinking about since we launched, and we put a lot of thought and effort into getting it ready for the community. This update added even more life to the world of Core Keeper with an all-new biome as well as lots of upgrades and additions to existing biomes. We added things like the Obliteration Ray, Battle Arenas, an Upgrade Station, the Radiation Suit, Cattle transportation, GIANT Snails, and more. Read the patch notes here.

Announcing Our Console and 1.0 Launch!

We recently announced that Core Keeper is launching in 1.0 and coming to console in Summer 2024. It has been such an amazing journey for us, we cant believe how far weve come since our Early Access Launch, and it honestly feels unreal to imagine that well be in 1.0 this time next year! We want to say a huge thank you to our wonderful community for your support so far, and we hope youre as excited for the future of Core Keeper as we are.
Weve got lots more planned for Core Keeper as we work our way towards 1.0 and beyond. If youve made it this far through the post, we hope that we can count on your nomination for the Labour of Love award!