The Core rolled out on Steam Early Access

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Demo also available for mechanical sphere action-adventure on Windows PC

"Be the ball." Caddyshack's famous words of motivational advice for golfers is only meant to be figurative, but you'll literally get to BE the ball in The Core, the newly released sci-fi action-adventure from solo developer Carlton Forrester of Electric Machine Games.

Players control SC-2, or Skatoo, an "autonomous AI core" inside a metal spherical body. You awaken in a large, empty facility with no recollection of what came before, your memory modules having been removed. To learn more, you must "roll through the decaying remains of [this] once-active facility, where rusted machinery, dark corridors, and forgotten systems hint at a long-lost past." Fortunately you're not entirely alone, as LANDA, the fully voiced Local Area Network Digital Assistant, will help out with instructions whenever you visit a computer terminal with the necessary access. As you explore, you'll uncover "scattered clues, recordings, and systems left behind," which will gradually begin to "piece together the story of what happened to the world — and the truth behind your own creation and purpose."

The Core is a free-rolling 3D adventure with the ability to switch between first- and third-circle perspectives, using either a gamepad or standard keyboard/mouse combo. You'll start out inside the darkened, long-deserted subterranean facility, but will later make your way onto the surface to find a "beautiful but bleak, dystopian landscape where humanity appears to have vanished." To do that, however, will require overcoming a variety of physical obstacles, and that requires upgrades. Crucially, you must first find and equip an accessory ring and recharging zapper, which sends out an electrical current to "flick lights on in dark corridors, toss objects with pinpoint precision, and clear obstacles blocking your path."

To do more you'll need to complete a series of standalone training courses called "Cain's Trials" and collect scattered bits of collectible tech. Tech serves as the game's currency for upgrades, whether to improve movement, zapper strength, health capacity or other functions. Mastering "the art of momentum" allows you to "navigate treacherous terrain, overcome environmental hazards" and solve puzzles by manipulating "doors, switches, fans, pressure plates, moving platforms, pipes, rails, and more to unlock new paths or reach distant areas." In time, you'll be confronted by robotic sentries and other hostile entities, and what "begins as a simple set of tools soon becomes something far more powerful — devices meant for utility can be repurposed into formidable weapons when danger arises." From "dark corridors and decaying technology to forests, cliffsides, and abandoned surface environments," each new area holds new challenges and secrets, and based on what you discover, ultimately it will be up to you to decide "whether to complete a mission that was set in motion so long ago."

The full version of The Core won't be ready for another 12 to 18 months, but the game is now available through Steam Early Access for Windows PC, with plans for a new "story update every 4-6 months, and new trials every month." Currently 3 complete chapters and 30 trials are playable, with an expected playtime ranging anywhere from 4 to 10 hours.