Pugstorm has finally put a date on it. Core Keeper's 1.3 update, Riders of the Underground, lands on September 21, and it is the first of the three major updates on the Road to the Maw that the studio announced back in August. This one is broad rather than deep: it touches travel, combat, decoration and the magic skill trees all at once, which makes it exactly the kind of update that rewards a bit of server side preparation.
Here is what is coming, and the three things worth sorting out on your server before the patch drops.
Mounts, the Hookshot and a pile of new gear
The headline feature is rideable mounts. From 1.3, every type of cattle in the game can be ridden once you craft a Saddle, walk up to the animal and place it. Each mount gets its own UI where you can rename it and set its behaviour to stay put, roam freely or follow you around when you are not riding. Take the Saddle off and it goes back to being ordinary cattle.
The Hookshot is the other movement change, and it has been teased on social media for weeks. It is an off-hand item that pulls you across pits, provided there is something on the far side to hook onto. It does not retire bridges entirely, but it turns the small chasms that used to force a long detour into a two second crossing.
Beyond traversal there are three new pets. The Hoppet attacks at range and can apply the slippery effect, Azeos Jr fires projectile shards and can stun, and Pugstorm is deliberately sitting on the third one. The rest of the content list is long: 10 new armour pieces, 15 rings, 15 necklaces, new pouches, new enemies, new weapons, customisable cursor and crosshair indicators, and resizable paintbrush areas.
The Moss sub-biome and the Orex
The new area is the Moss sub-biome, tucked into the darker and more humid corners of the Forgotten Ruins. It is a genuinely quiet place by Core Keeper standards: lush green patches, a cosy atmosphere and no natural predators, though the odd Caveling still wanders in from the surrounding ruins.
It also brings a new breed of cattle. The Orex looks like it should eat you, with front facing eyes and a jaw full of teeth, but its diet is entirely critter based and it is typically placid. Since it counts as cattle, it is rideable too.
Your existing world will not grow moss on its own
This is the part that catches server communities out after every Core Keeper content update, so plan for it now.
You do not need a new world and you do not need a new character. The catch is that new sub-biomes only appear in chunks your world has never generated. If your server has been running for months and your players have already carved their way through the Forgotten Ruins, the Moss patches will not quietly appear inside the area you have already explored. They will be out past the edge of it.
So the answer to "do we wipe for 1.3" is almost always no. The answer is an expedition. Pick a direction on day one, push well beyond your current border and let the world generate fresh ground. Mounts make that a far less tedious trip than it would have been in 1.2.
Update the server before anyone logs in
Version mismatch is the single most common Core Keeper connection failure, and patch day is when it bites. Client and dedicated server have to be on the same build, and players who auto update through Steam will walk straight into a server still sitting on the old one.
A few practical notes:
- Take a backup of your world save before you update anything. It is cheap, and it is the only thing that helps if a mod corrupts a save.
- Update the server on the same day the client patch goes live, not the day after.
- On Linux, a stale prefs.json in the dedicated server folder can make the server report an old version number even after a successful update. If the server insists it is outdated, delete that file and restart.
- Check that no old server process is still running in the background and holding the previous build.
- Tell your players to restart Steam completely, not just the game. A stale client process produces the same error from the other direction.
Once you have restarted, the Core Keeper server status checker will tell you whether the server is actually answering on the new build, rather than letting your players find out the hard way.
Mods are where the real risk sits
Pugstorm is working towards Steam Workshop support and currently runs it as an open beta, alongside the existing modding scene and the official modding documentation. That is good news long term, but it changes nothing about patch day.
1.3 rebalances and restructures talents in both the Magic and Summoning skill trees, adds a new weapon type for Summoners and new staff weapons for Mages, and changes how summons spawn and persist. Anything that touches skills, talents, weapons or summon behaviour is a strong candidate to break. Do not update a modded server blind. Back up, boot the server vanilla once to confirm the base game is healthy, then add your mods back a few at a time.
A short checklist for September 21
Back up the world save. Confirm you have RAM headroom for the new content and whatever mod list you plan to run, which the Core Keeper RAM calculator will size for you. Agree an exploration direction with your players so the Moss biome actually gets found. Audit your mods against the skill tree changes.
If you are still getting set up, our Core Keeper getting started guide covers the basics, and you can rent a Core Keeper server with instant setup, full FTP access and 24/7 support.
