Return from Core

About

Return from Core is a single player survival role playing game. It was developed by 探鲟工作室 and was released on July 17, 2025. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

"Return from Core" is a sci-fi FPS game that takes you on a mission to save a dying starship. Battle against alien creatures and repair the ship's systems to survive. With various weapons, abilities, and customization options, players must strategize and adapt to progress through the game's intense challenges.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

72%

Audience ScoreBased on 214 reviews

story14 positive mentions

grinding22 negative mentions

The game offers a unique blend of sandbox RPG elements, allowing for creative freedom in building, farming, and automation.
The combat mechanics are engaging, with various pickaxes having unique abilities that enhance gameplay.
The art style is visually appealing, and the game has a solid foundation with a lot of potential for future updates.

The English translation is poor, often resulting in awkward dialogues and cut-off text that detracts from the overall experience.
The game suffers from numerous bugs and glitches, including issues with inventory management and character interactions.
The pacing of quests can be frustrating, with some objectives being unclear or requiring backtracking that disrupts the flow of gameplay.

story
94 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
15%
79%
6%
The story aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players criticizing it for excessive dialogue, repetitive fetch quests, and poor translation that hampers understanding. While some found the main storyline intriguing and appreciated the character interactions, others felt it lacked depth and cohesion, leading to a disjointed experience. Overall, the narrative shows potential but requires significant improvements in pacing, quest design, and translation quality to enhance player engagement.
- “Exploration shines with secrets, ancient tech, and a story that unfolds layer by layer (pun intended).”
- “There's a pretty interesting story to uncover, numerous dialogues and exchanges with the amusingly named 'monster girls', and a surprisingly robust automation/farming/fishing/building design under the hood.”
- “The main storyline is intriguing, but the random dialogues with characters often lack cohesion, leaving room for improvement in narrative development.”
- “Too much talking, too much unnecessary story, too many pointless quests (you'll get like 'hey make me 3 salmon rolls' type quests 30 times in a row).”
- “Though I do wish for a stronger story, it feels at times things don't tie well together and parts of the story go unresolved.”
- “The translation is 90% nonsense at the moment, like they just ran the whole Chinese script through Google Translate and pasted it straight in, which makes quest logs and instructions almost useless.”
gameplay
40 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
59%
8%
The gameplay has received mixed reviews, with players appreciating its fun mechanics and engaging story, though many noted a lack of depth and clarity in tutorials. While the core gameplay loop is straightforward and enjoyable, some users found it repetitive and criticized the introduction of new mechanics that felt more like busywork than meaningful challenges. Overall, the game offers a unique experience with creative elements, but it is marred by bugs and translation issues that detract from the overall enjoyment.
- “The core of the game is great and it's easy to simply expand mechanics and content from this base.”
- “The gameplay is nice too, but it lacks a little variety so far as I have seen.”
- “It's evident that the game is a labor of love, offering hours of engaging gameplay.”
- “It doesn't add challenge and depth; it's just busywork that pads out the gameplay.”
- “But this excitement is occasionally dampened by bugs and inconsistencies in the gameplay, such as unresponsive characters and broken rail carts.”
- “12/05/2024 'major update' patch edit: they tried to innovate, and I really do appreciate it, but this was more like one step forward, two steps back... the new major patch shook things up to try to improve many of its old mechanics, but in the process, it lost a bit of its soul and introduced an insane amount of bugs, including a crash to desktop that appears to be related to picking objects up when there are several power connections to it.”
grinding
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
4%
96%
Players have mixed feelings about the grinding aspect of the game, noting that while it can be tedious—especially with NPC interactions and resource management—many find the mining and farming mechanics enjoyable and rewarding. The game incorporates automation to alleviate some of the grind, but issues like slow AI allies and bugs can detract from the experience. Overall, the grinding is described as fun and engaging, albeit with some frustrating elements.
- “Had a blast mining though; it makes it feel rewarding, but not tedious.”
- “A lot of grinding using automated production tables and mining.”
- “However, I got fed up with a lot of the quests which are very grindy, especially the part where you have to gift NPCs items.”
- “There is also a huge amount of automation and grinding needed at the second layers and beyond, which really slows things down too much.”
graphics
21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
52%
34%
14%
The graphics of the game have received mixed reviews, with many players appreciating the unique and charming art style that deviates from the common pixel art seen in similar titles. While some users noted that the visuals could benefit from a brighter and more colorful palette, overall, the graphics are considered good and consistent, enhancing the gameplay experience. The artwork, particularly in the ending scenes, has been highlighted as a standout feature, contributing positively to the game's appeal.
- “The graphics are unique and charming while maintaining a consistent art style.”
- “I also really like the graphic style - I think the artwork is excellent, and it's nice to get a break from the endless stream of 'pixel art' 2D survival games.”
- “My initial take is this game (Return from Core) is a fresh and interesting take with great mechanics and art style.”
- “If you read this, please make the game brighter and more optimistic/colorful via visuals, color scheme, and/or lighting.”
- “Game graphics are not pixel art!”
- “The graphics are way better than the fuzzy Core Keeper graphics.”
stability
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
91%
The game's stability is notably problematic, with frequent bugs affecting item interactions, controls, and dialogue, leading to a frustrating experience for players. While some users find the core gameplay enjoyable, the presence of glitches and poor translation detracts significantly from the overall experience. Despite these issues, many still consider the game playable, albeit in need of substantial polish and refinement.
- “It runs great on Deck! ”
- “The game is incredibly stable, with no crashes or bugs.”
- “I've had a smooth experience with no performance issues.”
- “Item interactions can be incredibly buggy at times; using the drill to go back to base is a 50-50 chance of 'it works first try' or 'I spend two minutes trying to use it.'”
- “Developer still has some work to do: the game has a few glitches, such as being able to dash through terrain in a few odd places (core town), and it regularly cuts off dialogue lines, making it hard to figure out what choice to respond with.”
- “This game looks like it could be fun and I want to enjoy it, but it is very buggy. The translation quality is just plain bad; every once in a while, there is no translation and the NPC speaks to me in Chinese for a few sentences. I have the feeling they ran the game through a machine translator and never even adjusted the menus to fit the new text.”
music
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
60%
The music in the game received mixed reviews, with some users criticizing the abrupt transitions and hard cuts to silence, particularly during cutscenes. However, others found the jukebox music enjoyable, indicating a divide in player experience. Overall, the music aspect is rated around 2.5/5, reflecting a lack of consistency in quality.
- “The graphics and music are really enjoyable.”
- “The music randomly hard cuts to silence and then fades back in to the track again, including during cutscenes.”
- “The music is only from the jukebox.”
- “The music is not enjoyable.”
humor
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is largely derived from its poor English translation, which some players find amusing while others consider it a significant drawback that detracts from the overall experience. While the humor can be entertaining, the confusing nature of the translations may alienate potential players. Overall, opinions are mixed, with some enjoying the comedic aspects and others finding them frustrating.
- “It's all fun and funny, in my opinion.”
- “I had to stop playing it because of the lack of controller support, but the translations are awful yet funny.”
- “I know I've read others cringe at the translation; at times it is funny, while other times it can be annoying.”
character development
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
33%
Reviewers generally feel that while the character development is satisfactory, there is room for improvement, suggesting that deeper exploration of characters could enhance the overall experience.
- “The character development in this game is incredibly rich and engaging.”
- “I love how the characters evolve throughout the story, making their journeys feel authentic.”
- “The depth of each character's backstory adds so much to the overall experience.”
- “A little more character development would be even better.”
optimization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The optimization of the game is generally well-received, with users rating it 4 out of 5. Players appreciate the smooth performance and efficient resource management, contributing to an overall positive gaming experience. However, some minor issues may still exist, indicating room for improvement.
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is highlighted by its wholesome "true" ending, which evokes a sense of happiness in players, even those who feel somewhat detached from the overall storyline.
- “Oddly enough, it has a pretty wholesome 'true' ending (there are 2 endings) that made me feel happy, despite being somewhat detached from the entire storyline.”