There is a lot to explore in this 2D sandbox title on Steam. But below the surface, you will find not only treasures but also nasty Core Keeper bosses. Find out how to defeat Azeos the Sky Titan, and learn more helpful tips and tricks in this Core Keeper guide.
The pixel adventure Core Keeper comes from the Swedish developer Pugstorm and is their latest game title. After an initial announcement last summer, it has been playable in Early Access on Steam since March 28, 2022. In case you don’t own the game yet and want to get a first impression, you can download a free demo. But what is the game actually about?
What the Core Keeper game is about
Those who know Minecraft will quickly feel at home here. In this retro 2D pixel-art game, up to 8 players take on the role of cave explorers in a procedurally generated cave system. While leading an expedition through a forest, you are attracted to a magical relic and decide to touch it. Suddenly you are teleported below the surface, where there is an ancient energy source that carries a beautiful blue glowing core. Now that you’re stuck underground, you’ll have to fight for your survival and build your base. The core needs your protection (hence the name).
Expand and develop your camp in many ways, thanks to the numerous resources around you. Analogous to Minecraft, valuable treasures await you underground, such as fossils, hidden crystals, or valuable relics and trinkets. Of course, there’s also a lot to craft at the workbench. Create your own equipment, new items, and armor to equip yourself for your next expeditions. The torch and pickaxe will be your faithful companions! Upgrade your gear and get better. Your main task is to find crystals to strengthen the core with the surrounding boss statues. To do this, go more and more into the different biomes, which of course, include big monsters and the Core Keeper bosses. You’ll have to defeat them to get the crystals.
Become a master of the underground with our Core Keeper Guide
In order to have the smoothest start possible in the Core Keeper game, you should take note of these 6 tips.
Don’t forget to select a Class
First of all, you need to create a character that suits you, as well as a background (class) that fits your playstyle. The latter will determine what bonuses and items you start with. Your ability levels will also depend on it. For starters, the explorer is highly recommended, as it’s the only one equipped with a small lantern that lets you dig and light up the surroundings at the same time. They also travel faster due to the skillpoints set. The many other items can be built later through resources, but this way, you’ll have a relatively easy start right away.
Choose your skills wisely
As you work in the caves and complete tasks, you earn skill points. With these, you can upgrade different abilities and thus optimize the game and your quality of life underground. Think about what type of player you are and invest in skills that suit your style. If long uninterrupted play is very important to you, choose skills that reduce your food consumption while running, for example.
You must eat
As mentioned above, food is an important aspect of the game. For example, if you do difficult tasks and don’t take constant care of it, your food supply will be depleted very soon, and you will lose health points. So to be safe, you should stock up on enough food in your inventory. For starters, mushrooms are a good source of food because they are the easiest to find, and you can eat them right away.
Craft a workbench quickly
In order to craft your first essential items, you need to build a workbench – preferably at the very beginning of the game. You can make this with 8 pieces of wood.
Sleep
Make beds to both recharge your health and set a respawn point (in case you decide not to build in the vicinity of the core). It never hurts to have several beds here and there that you can quickly get to when your energy is low and then continue mining/fighting right away. This is advisable, as the walking distances become quite long in some cases. You should also add flares to your walkways so you don’t lose your orientation. Although there is a map, this can be helpful in case of escape situations.
Get armor first
Getting started in the game isn’t easy, and at the beginning, you don’t have any real weapons. That’s why it’s even more important to take care of your defense and offense as early as possible. Invest some time to build yourself an anvil on which you can craft armor and weapons. This will be rewarded with a much higher chance of survival when exploring. Because before you know it, you’ll be in the middle of a nasty boss fight.
How to even beat nasty Core Keeper bosses like Azeos the Sky Titan and others
In the Early Access Co-op survival game, the bosses can be a real challenge. But with the right approach, you will be able to defeat them and get the precious gems that you need for the core. Furthermore, these items drop, which it takes to attract NPCs. There are 6 Core Keeper bosses waiting for you in total.
- Glurch the Abominous Mass
- Ghorm the Devourer
- The Hive Mother
- Azeos the Sky Titan
- Malugaz the Corrupted
- Ivy the Poisonous Mass
- Morpha the Aquatic Mass (Sunken Sea Update)
- Omoroth the Sea Titan (Sunken Sea Update)
- Igneous the Molten Mass (The Desert of Beginnings Update)
- Ra-Akar the Sand Titan (The Desert of Beginnings Update)
1. Boss: Glurch the Abominous Mass
You will find the first boss Glurch very close to your starting point. A thunder sound indicates that you are near him. The enemy is a big blob that will try to crush you with a jump attack and is also pretty quick. Equip yourself for the fight best with a tin sword, copper armor, some crude bombs, a shovel, as well as enough food that increases your damage or speed. Clear the boss’s room of slime and slime spikes as best you can beforehand with the shovel because they will slow you down or damage you. Then try to hit the enemy with your sword or bombs whenever he is on the ground. Be quick about it so you don’t get crushed. Also, make sure that he returns to his starting point as little as possible, as this regenerates his health points.
2. Boss: Ghorm the Devourer
To find this boss, simply dig in any direction from the base until you reach Ghorm’s wide, slimy tunnel. This boss is a mobile enemy that constantly moves radially along the tunnel around the core. It is especially difficult to stop him because he will rush past you, circling the map and constantly healing himself. In the process, he leaves behind slime that also slows you down. The best thing to do is to mine 50 units of tin ore, which you can find in the clay caves, melt it down, and craft 50 spike traps on top of it at the workbench. These traps kill Ghorm very quickly but are then also destroyed.
3. Boss: The Hive Mother
After killing Glurch, you can get to this boss relatively quickly by using the Glurch statue in the core. This creates a beacon that shows an icon with its location on the map. Equip yourself with an iron pickaxe to smash through the massive larval walls. In the chamber, you should first kill all the other enemies and larvae and use at least a copper shovel to dig out all the acid blobs and hive spike traps.
When fighting the Hive Mother, dodge the acid spit attacks, which come from the air. A target marker on your character will give you time to parry. It’s best to then dig a deep tunnel on one side of the chamber to kill approaching boss enemies with spike traps. Shoot the hive mother from the tunnel with a Flintlock musket for instance.
4. Boss: Azeos the Sky Titan
To find this enemy, you will need a bit more patience. Also, you should have equipped yourself with bombs, a shield, healing potions, a sword, and decent armor beforehand. You have defeated all three previous enemies and placed their gems in the boss statues, and activated the core? Then communicate with the core now and have it tell you to touch the Great Wall – a massive barrier that is more in the outside world. After touching the wall, you’ll need to talk to the core again, which will tell you a direction to dig to. This will take you to the Azeos Wilderness. In order for you to find the boss in this new biome, you’ll need to build a scanner that reveals the boss’s location, on the one hand. Secondly, you’ll need to craft the “large shiny glimmering object” that summons the creature.
Azeos will attack you with energy beams that close into a circle around you from different directions, dealing powerful damage. You can cancel out most of the damage of this attack by using a shield. Always strike the bird with your sword after his. Also, destroy any blue crystals that appear with a bomb, which will heal Azeos. One of the hardest Core Keeper bosses, good luck.
5. Boss: Malugaz the Corrupted
You can fight this and all the following bosses only after you have finished the first three. For fighting Malugaz it is best to equip yourself with a shield, healing potions, food, a good sword, fireballs, and a Swift Feather (found in chests, crates, and drops from Glurch) for quick dashing.
You can find the Core Keeper boss in the throne room located in the Forgotten Ruins biome. There, collect 10 blue crystal skull shards that Cavelings drop, add them to your Hotbar, and create a crystal skull from it. The room is an O-shaped chamber with a skull rune in the middle of it. Clear the chamber of all obstacles and pillars before summoning Malugaz with the crystal skull.
This enemy is a two-stage boss. First, you have to try to damage him with ranged weapons like the fireball staff, while you keep dodging his fireballs through the Swift Feather and attack him with your best melee weapon when he teleports near you. Once you have destroyed his shield, continue the fight in the same way until his energy bar is at zero.
6. Boss: Ivy the Poisonous Mass
This boss can be found in the Azeos Wilderness. A lot of exploration and tunneling in the biome is required to find Ivy. Areas that contain a large amount of pink poison slime are indicative of his whereabouts.
Ivy is very similar to Glurch because this boss is also a large blob of slime that jumps around. However, his slime, as the name indicates already, is very poisonous. If you are in possession of the Remedaisy Necklace, which is dropped by purple slimes sometimes, you will be immune to poison. Ivy’s secondary attack is slime raining down from the ceiling. Watch out for the red markings and dodge the attacks in time. When Ivy stops jumping and starts growling, that’s the sign of its secondary attack. Just before it dies, the boss moves much faster. Proceed with this enemy analogously to Glurch to be fast enough and not get crushed. Dashing is also always advisable at this point. Also a pretty tough nut to crack among the Core Keeper bosses.
7. Boss: Morpha the Aquatic Mass (Sunken Sea Update)
You can fight Morpha in the Sunken Sea biome, which was added with an update in mid-June this year. To find him, you must first defeat the bosses Glurch, Ghorm, and The Hive Mother in the outer ring and add their gems to the respective statues. Then talk to the core to remove the barrier. It’s best to take some healing potions with you and the best Octarine weapons you can get. Boost your speed as much as possible to better parry Morpha’s jump attacks. Just like with the other bosses, you should clear the arena of annoying enemies and debris beforehand to have enough space for the fight. No problem, since you can easily get very close to Morpha before the fight starts. It’s best to use ranged attacks to better avoid the many bubble projectiles.
8. Boss: Omoroth the Sea Titan (Sunken Sea Update)
Omoroth can also be found in the Sunken Sea and can be fought after defeating Glurch, Ghorm and The Hive Mother. Remove the sealed wall after talking to the core. It is recommended to equip yourself with Octarine armor and weapons, and also upgrade them beforehand. Take large healing potions and reinforcement potions as well as a boat. To be especially fast on the water in battle, you should get the speeder boat. In regard to preparing the battle arena, it is advisable to light up the area with torches and remove the tentacles on the spot beforehand. In order to summon the boss, you need to make an ancient hologram pod at the statue of The Hive Mother and place it on the ground. Talk to the hologram and then craft an expert lure. To make the lure, you will need the following ingredients:
- 30 spicy bait
- 30 glowing bait
- 30 sweet bait
- 30 Octarine bars
- 10 ancient gemstones
- 1 purple bait
You will get the purple bait from the Fishing Merchant once you defeat Azeos the Sky Titan. If you have already defeated this boss, you will need to kill him again to unlock the dealer. Put the crafted expert lure in your off-hand slot. Then cast your fishing rod into one of the large vortexes in Omoroth’s arena. Once something bites, you don’t pull out a little fish but the boss. Whoopsie.
Fight Omoroth from a distance and keep moving with your speeder boat as often as possible. Destroy the summoned melee tentacles as best you can and dodge the tornadoes. When Omoroth has only 50% health left, he will attack much faster. A battle aimed at exhaustion is ahead of you, which will require some patience but will lead you to victory if you keep being careful.
9. Boss: Igneous the Molten Mass (The Desert of Beginnings Update)
This boss is the hardest of them all so far, and it was added with the latest update. You can also challenge him after killing the first three bosses and then talking to the core to unseal the wall.
You will find Igneous in Molton Quarry in the Desert of Beginnings. When you’re there, keep an ear out as you will hear the slimy boss jumping, and your screen will shake as you get closer to him. Put on your best armor and take lots of healing potions with you because this boss is a tough one. Take some more ground pieces to fill in the lava flows, which are numerous in the battle arena, for better dodging. Again, ranged combat is the best choice to defeat this enemy. Igneous shoots fireballs and summons flame balls that float around you. Also, as Slime, he again tries to crush you with jumps. When his health is down to 50%, the fight gets more intense. So always keep your distance, and with some endurance and caution, defeat him as well.
10. Boss: Ra-Akar the Sand Titan (The Desert of Beginnings Update)
Like Igneous, you must have defeated the first three bosses and talked to the core. Then you’ll meet Ra-Akar behind the locked wall in the Desert of Beginnings. The battle arena consists of a square building, in front of which you’ll find a panel. During the battle, no other opponents or obstacles await you. However, just fighting is hard enough. Speed is also the key to success in this fight because Ra-Akar is very agile. So it’s best to take food and items that will improve your speed. Your defense should also be as high as possible because the boss’s attacks are incredibly strong. At this point, it should be noted that one of Ra-Akar’s attacks is not really blockable. Boost your defense as much as you can, and you will be successful. We wish you a lot of fun!
Will the Core Keeper game also be released on the Nintendo Switch?
Many players would like to see a port to the Switch so that they can compete against the Core Keeper bosses there as well. According to the developer Pugstorm, unfortunately, there is currently no console version planned for the Core Keeper Game. So far, the title is only available as Early Acces on Steam for PC and Linux. Let’s cross fingers for a release for consoles like the Nintendo Switch. We’ll keep you posted about any news regarding that front too.
Other sandbox games that might be interesting for you
If you want to dig into other sandbox games as well, feel free to check out our Deep Rock Galactic Guide, where we gathered some helpful tips and tricks. Or, if you’re looking for exciting co-op adventures that have already been released on consoles, check out our Co-op PS5 Games or PS5 Split Screen Games.
What’s your most memorable Core Keeper moment? Feel free to share it in the comments below.
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