Swedish studio Pugstorm has launched version 1.0 of its survival sandbox game Core Keeper. The game has amassed a huge audience over two years of Early Access.
Core Keeper graduated from Early Access on August 27. It currently has a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, with 91% of the 26.3k user reviews being positive. Taking into account reviews left in the last 30 days only, the rating is 93%.
According to SteamDB, Core Keeper peaked at 31,597 concurrent players following its 1.0 launch — just a few thousands shy of its all-time high of 34.5k CCU. It is worth noting that Pugstorm held a free weekend from August 22 to August 26. The game attracted 200k new users and peaked at 18.5k CCU.
The studio’s CEO and creative director Fredrik Präntare was stunned by the huge interest from players, writing on X that it was “beyond my imagination.”
Prior to starting Pugstorm in 2018, Präntare briefly worked at Paradox Interactive on improving game AI in Europa Universalis IV. He was also the co-founder of Dimfrost Studio, where he worked on action adventure game Bramble: The Mountain King.
In 2020, Pugstorm released its debut title, “hare-raising” arcade game Radical Rabbit Stew, which didn’t reach the level of success of the the team’s next project.
Core Keeper launched in Early Access in March 2022, selling 100k copies in the first two days and crossing the 1 million mark in two weeks. It surpassed 2 million units sold during its EA period, with Präntare saying that the team has been “overjoyed to see all the love and support players have shown for the game over the last couple of years.”
In addition to its commercial success, Core Keeper was named the Best Social Game at the TIGA Games Industry Awards 2022 and won the Best Debut at the Swedish Game Awards 2023.
Pugstorm plans to further support the game with content updates and various improvements. Version 1.0 features a new world-generation system, endgame biome, and bosses as well as the PvP system. The game is also available on Xbox and PlayStation, with the Switch version scheduled for September 17.