Chris InglisCoreborn: Nations of the Ultracore is a multiplayer survival game developed by Blankhans and released on Steam early access on July 18, 2023. You establish a town, build a base and defend it with friends, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun already. What appeared at first to be a simplified survival game, quickly became addicting to play as we learned how to make our characters better with new armour and weapons, built up our town and explored further for better resources.
Long-standing tensions between the various races have led to unending conflict in the world of Tormentosia. The situation reached a fever pitch when Sorgoth the Devourer invaded the land, causing near-total destruction. In a last-ditch effort to save what remains, the six remaining kingdoms united their power and resources to create a groundbreaking new technology – the Ultracore. As a coreborn, it is up to us to stake a claim in the land mass of Ambros and to thrive and survive as we repel the evil forces.
Character creation was quite simplified with not too many options to choose from and both Justin and I created characters separately but they basically looked the same. Entering Coreheim, we are met by a blue character called Nib the Jib who guides us through the town explaining core elements such as pressing F1 for the comprehensive help guide and P to invite friends and other players to your group, then travelling to the lands of Ambros. We are placed into a server with groups of 20 players. Once you build a town you can invite people to it, so I invited Justin and from then on we were always in the same server.
Once in Ambrosa, we see a vast expanse of green grass and forest areas, farmland, trees and cliff faces, and the bright blue beam of light that is the Ultracore far off into the distance to the north. We don’t get to choose out character name, so I believe it uses your Steam username, and I saw Justin and another character running around. Nib starts us off on tutorial quests of foraging for resources, crafting an axe and pickaxe so we can chop trees for wood and sap, and mine stone and clay. We craft our first greatsword so we can defend ourselves, and we can also pick up things like flax and reeds to create cloth armour, bandages and other useful items.
There is no compass or mini map in the user interface, and while we can see Nib as a blue icon on the map and us as an orange icon, no other icons pop up as you visit places. Without a compass, it was a frustrating first hour working out which direction to run and how to get back to Nib, until i realised the Ultracore is our northern star. Using that as a northern reference made it easier to navigate, but I would love to see a small compass at the top of the screen. It would also be great to see our town members icons on the map too, as well as points of interest as we discover them.
Combat against monsters will see orange or red targeting zones on the ground that you must try avoiding by running or dodging using ctrl, otherwise you’ll get hit. This bought back memories of paying 2014’s MMORPG Wildstar that had a similar hit-zone system. This proved to be problematic for that game as any lag between you and the servers meant it might look like you got out of the way on your screen, but you would still get hit as the server thought you were still in the hit zone. Thankfully I haven’t had any issues with combat so far.
There are no monster levels in Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore, so it was trial and error as we worked out which monsters we could handle and which we should avoid. Initially the unicorn type monsters were the ones that would take us out in a couple of hits. Your hitpoints are signified in the bottom left of the UI and you can use bandages or heal potions to heal yourself. When you die, you respawn at Nib until you start your own town and can respawn from there. The items in your backpack are dropped on death, and a purple waypoint will guide you back to your remains to loot back.
At one point the tutorial quests ask you to obtain a crystal essence from Coreheim and then use it to upgrade your town centre. It was a long run from our town in the middle of the map to the north where the portal to Coreheim is, and back again. There are no mounts in the game yet though the developers have stated there could be mounts once the lands expand sometime in the future. Thankfully we can sprint without stamina loss, which if you played in the first few days, is a godsend.
In my travels north I came across what appeared to be a major npc town that did have npcs in what looked like a village market. They spoke to me once I approached, but they weren’t able to be interacted with. Similarly, there are npcs in Coreheim that give some good backstory as you walk by them, but at present there is only one npc you can interact with to trade craftable items for the crystal essences. I assume these npcs will be implemented properly in future patches and updates.
Once back at town, adding crystal essences will incrementally increase the level of your town. It required three essences to go from level 1 to 2, but each time you add an essence, it increases your threat to the wilderness. A bar tells you how much threat you have and when at full threat, an invasion of your town will occur. It used to be a four-minute wait and in that time, you can’t interact or add to your base buildings, but thankfully last night’s 3rd major patch reduced the timer to 30 seconds.
The town invasion happens in waves, initially with just one monster to deal with per wave. The monsters will try to destroy your town centre, so you want to barricade around it. If they do managed to get through, you will lose a level if they damage it too much. Your walls, crafting stations and storage boxes are all susceptible to damage too so be sure to protect your valuables. Our town is now level 8 and with two of us we are barely surviving against the tougher monsters. We have a third friend who has just started so that will help a lot.
We are also raising our skills enough that we can craft slightly better gear. In saying that, the first cloth chest armour is still better than any leather chest piece I have made which doesn’t seem right. No doubt there’s a heap of balancing to come with server stability, bugs and additional content being a priority for the developers. The three big patches released to date have been fantastic, and the developers are quite active in their discord server with a publicly viewable roadmap. It’s refreshing to have such responsive developers; I just hope they don’t burn out or get overwhelmed as the game is a lot of fun so far and gets better with each update.
So far, Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore is a promising survival game best played with mates. You can solo in the game but ultimately the aim is to have your own town or join someone elses. I still have skills and new armour and weapon mods to work towards and I am keen to see what the developers add in future updates. This is definitely a survival game worth keeping an eye on over the early access period and well worth checking out for yourself.
This early access review utilised keys provided by Vicarious PR and Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore is out now on Steam early access.
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