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Mini Worlds Dioramas
Game
Game2025
Return from Core
Developer 顽核社 FuncoreClub
Mine, build, and explore with Monster Girl companions in this underground sandbox adventure. Uncover lost tech, automate production, and forge bonds with allies as you fight to survive and journey back to the surface. From the Steam store page
187 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
68
Fresh
125 positive · 58 negative
95% range 61–75%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 125 | 58 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
180 of 256 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
69% recommend · 126 yes, 57 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 183 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (1,394 of 1,828 positive).
Players compare it to Core Keeper but with added story and monster girls. [1][2][3] The English translation is widely criticized as poor and confusing. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [5]
I don't currently recommend the game for english speakers. 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. There is also a huge amount of automation and grinding needed at the 2nd layers and beyond, which really slows things down too much.
- [6]
Translation is horrid and zero effort. Some lines in the early tutorial are untranslated, the cutscenes actually cut off text because they play too fast, text doesn't fit inside boxes, and other things that really drag this down. Usually I'm not one to get snippy about translation, but these issues are so bad they detract from the game noticeably. It's big selling point is the monster girls, but...if I already can't …
- [2]
It's a testament to how good "Return to Core" is when the English-support is garbage and yet you still enjoy the game. Even when the translation is right, the UI cuts off leaving you to guess what the rest of the text is supposed to be. But it's still a really fun game. EDIT: So, to sum the game up, it's Core Keeper but with two elements that Core Keeper lacks: an actual plot and monster girls. And that's all that …
- [18]
Highly recommended in the future. This game is everything and more of what I wanted out of Core Keeper. I love the monster girls, automation systems and everything in general. The only problems right now are the terrible translations, the lack of QoL features, systems that have not been implemented yet like ranching, balancing issues, horrible controller layout and overall lack of polishing. Based on this review one …
- [10]
First up, please ignore all the people claiming this is just like Core Keeper or a ripoff. I can't help but feel they're not complaining about the game's merits and just want to raise a fuss, kind of like the flax Doom clones and SV-likes keep getting. So, if this isn't Core Keeper but is in the same genre of underground exploration, what is Return From Core? It's a very heavily story-focused, highly linear game …
Summarised from 34 of the 193 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
69% of the 183 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Return from Core. The complaint that keeps coming up: terrible English translation makes the game confusing. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Reactions
60 of 187 · most liked firstWas interested, plays decent, but the translation is so bad that I had to stop playing. I rather wait for a update that fixes the translation than play the current version of the game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's like Core Keeper mixed with some parts of factorio and you get waifus. 10/10.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't currently recommend the game for english speakers. 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. There is also a huge amount of automation and grinding needed at the 2nd layers and beyond, which really slows things down too much.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sad, but this game is not ready yet. I like the premise of the game and the art is nice. That being said, there are lots of little bugs and annoyances that make the game really tedious at times. Also, the pacing of the quests is really terrible and they should just get rid of them tbh. The 1.0 release seems rushed and as a non chinese speaker, i would refrain from buying this game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a testament to how good "Return to Core" is when the English-support is garbage and yet you still enjoy the game. Even when the translation is right, the UI cuts off leaving you to guess what the rest of the text is supposed to be. But it's still a really fun game. EDIT: So, to sum the game up, it's Core Keeper but with two elements that Core Keeper lacks: an actual plot and monster girls. And that's all that needs to be said.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is an updated review after beating the game and 100% achievement. I would give the game a 7.5/10. Its not the most flashy or innovative of games ever made, but if you want something to kill time with, this game could be that. In my 46 hours of total play time include this playthrough (from start to finish, about 36 hours) plus early access playtime, so if you want to speedrun it, you could probably beat the game in like under 15 hours (with most, if not all achievements unlocked). The…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →English translation is steadily worse as the game goes on, to keep you from refunding early on.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Translation is horrid and zero effort. Some lines in the early tutorial are untranslated, the cutscenes actually cut off text because they play too fast, text doesn't fit inside boxes, and other things that really drag this down. Usually I'm not one to get snippy about translation, but these issues are so bad they detract from the game noticeably. It's big selling point is the monster girls, but...if I already can't read any of the text and missed some parts of the plot due to the cutscene…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Disclaimer: For the sake of everyone reading this, I will not be delving on the numerous tiny bugs that this game has. Yes, it is possible to softlock yourself. If it seems like you can break something, it probably will, so don't do it. I had to reload a few times due to getting stuck in the hot tub. With its poor pacing, the numerous inconsistencies, and overall sloppy design, it honestly feels like the game began as a "haha monster girl hangout" concept - and only later did someone realize…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Controller support is janky and barely works, the english translation is so terrible it makes the game unplayable. Thought those would get fixed on the v1 release but unfortunately they weren't. Would not recommend buying in its current state.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Eh, it's ok. It's one of those "after a few floors it's just all the same" games though. Floor: copper, floor: iron, floor: some other thing...same every floor. You scale up about the same as the mobs so it's just super easy the whole game, no combat challenge. Automation is nice but other than auto-mining/smelting and dumping ingots into a chest, it's not really taht exciting. Sure you can automate crafting of stuff but...there's really no need. NPCs are annoying and tedious...probably…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →On the surface, it's got all the recipes for automation and base building, but the more you play, the more you realize that there's barely any variation to progression and maps. There's a ton of bugs that skips quests and causes your machine to stutter the longer you play, and the dialogue is worse than what AI could've written. The devs have abandoned the game so we're not getting fixes anymore. Can't play this without restarting the game every 20min. I should've refunded it when I could, but…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →fun little (~20 hour) sandbox game, the closest comparison would be Core Keeper - progression is fun, some upgrades are impactful, but much like CK the game rewards spurts of grinding something out considerably over passively progressing as you go, so be aware - automation is above average for the genre, has the basic Factorio toolbox of types of conveyor belts, furnaces, drones, electricity generation, but going full Factorio will actually slow down the game, so limit yourself to like 6…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Abandoned. Was having fun then... The entire contents of my backpack disappeared. Lost any desire to continue playing. A bug that will never get fixed. I don't want to play more for that to happen again. And really don't want to start over either. On the 1st floor you have a predetermined base location. Guessing every floor is like that. Combat goes like this. See some monsters. Put down some fences, kill monsters with ranged pickaxe, collect fences and loot over and over. Works in dungeons…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game sucks! You need to restart the entire game because you performed a quest out of sequence. I restarted the game and cleared the entire level both times but could not advance to the next level because I completed a quest before it was a given quest. Its a know issue the developer never bothered to fixed. The first time I already killed all the monsters the quest was given for. The second time I gave a gift before it was asked for and that prevents all future quest which are needed to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →another edit after update 6/25: I cant believe I even tried after new update. Yes the controller support is better. I can tell they put effort in so I do not want to disparage them this time, but I sadly do have to say its still not really acceptable. The mouse is ALWAYS active on the screen. It messes with the menu highlights and is really just an intrusive sight that will not go away no matter how much you want it to. Also had the wrong button tooltip display in cutscene telling me to press…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Needs to be properly translated. Can barely understand anything going on atm with how bad and incomplete the translation is.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I started playing it for the first time before 1.0 and thought it was an interesting game, but it had its flaws. There were a lot of bugs, and not everything had been properly translated yet, so I decided to wait for 1.0. When I saw that 1.0 had been released, I decided to give it another try. The translation has been fixed, but there are still a lot of bugs, which has been driving me insane. The only options when getting stuck are either using the unstuck feature, which can make you lose…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not recommended until they fix the translations. It's comically bad and makes the game unenjoyable. I will update if they ever fix the translations.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Had to refund. Gamepad barely works so playing the game barely works for Steam Deck. This a mouse & keyboard game until they fix the bugs
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The dialogue is bad -- A word salad that makes no sense most of the time. Some of it is okay and you might glean a small fragment of what is supposed to be said, but I cannot stress just how disappointing it is to read a part about killing rats, then a rats "brother"(?), and eating them. Like yeah, I get that I gotta kill the rats... I get I might need to eat them, but that didn't happen... So just... huh?!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wouldn't recommend this game in it's current state, not just because of bugs or the horrible translations you may have seen in other reviews, but I would mention that it seems like the support for this game seems almost non-existent along with several megabyte updates that have no change logs always being pushed when I boot up Steam. The UI is extremely clunky, the controller support is not that great either, tested with an Xbox One controller. Once more, if you're not fluent in Chinese, I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Highly recommended in the future. This game is everything and more of what I wanted out of Core Keeper. I love the monster girls, automation systems and everything in general. The only problems right now are the terrible translations, the lack of QoL features, systems that have not been implemented yet like ranching, balancing issues, horrible controller layout and overall lack of polishing. Based on this review one would think the game has more negatives than positives and that would be…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No female player character. Laugh if you want, but for a monster girl themed Core Keeper riff, with the 'Dating Sim' tag, I was hoping for a female PC, not locked into male. C'est la vie. I will look elsewhere for my monster girl yuri.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It has some Core Keeper aspects but with a story line and goals. Digging through rocks is so relaxing.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Like a less polished version of Core Keeper or the other various top-down Terraria-likes. Buy it really cheap or not at all. The poor polish and awful translation really hamper it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Needs better translation Edit: I appreciate the feedback from the developer, and will definitely try it out again when the translation is better.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Could only play a few minutes, controller support is terrible. Will revisit this review if it ever improves.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game good, english bad, fix please
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game looks fun and exciting, but no controller support. Will update review once controller support is added.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First and foremost I want to say to the devs that although many of the reviewers dismiss the English translation as laughable and funny I think that it's probably the biggest problem with the game in its current state because a lot of potential players will likely be immediately turned off by how confusing it can be early on even before the automation quest starts. The game so far reminds me of Core Keeper and Keplerth with a bit more focus on automation. There are some hefty pacing issues…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game started out nice then 1.0 was rushed and now it;s junk don't buy
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Devs are incompetent or what? I could barely reconfigure controls because the default controls are locked, which meant I can't swap the controls around because it still thinks the default is being used. Ran into a major problem BEFORE i even started playing, wtf?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Excellent game for a resource management game even in early access state. The good: - Addictive game play for this genre. Once you reach the -factory- stage, it is addictive to gather resources just to make more. - The Monster girls are nice. A little more character development would be even better. - Really enjoyable graphics and music. The point to improve: - The UI still has some issues/bugs here and there but nothing game breaking. - Might be nice to simplify the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is A Core Keeper like game if developed by Chinese Developer. I think? but still either way it's a solid standing on its own game with differences enough to not be a clone all together. So Far I haven't gotten too far into it. but you can manage NPC Monster Girls. (My life for monster girls~) have them do automated tasks and help out in combat as as well. the art is pretty decent. the gameplay is nice too, but it lacks a little variety so far as I have seen. but I will play more to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sadly the translation leaves A LOT to be desired. Dialogue often looks like it comes from an online translator. The first intro after starting up the game cuts the dialogue short and so on and so on. These are basic issues.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Reminds me alot of Core Keeper, a top down mining, crafting, and survival game, but with the added bonus of monstergirl bosses that you can befriend and have live at your base. The monstergirl bosses serve quite a few purposes. Shopkeeps, manual labor, fight buddies, and of course, company! They have an affection mechanic, so interacting with them and gifting them things raises it, which unlocks recipes and more interactions with them. They also can serve as team members, which you can level…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Take my life-saving advice and complete all the "story" tutorial missions for level 1-3 FIRST; I was playing minecraft when instead the actual game was supposed to be satisfactory, being able to make components in minutes rather than painstakingly take hours to make a house. It took me twelve hours of running around trying to make a nice house that I realized you were SUPPOSED to do the quests first. Although I guess you could say this is a positive since the tutorial blends into the gameplay…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First, the experience building is worse than core keeper Secondly, buggy questlines that may softlock or confuse you longer than needed Thirdly, they rushed straight to 1.0 from 0.6 to get out of early access, making the game feel horribly unpolished in some place like early game base building or controller support. Lastly, control is really wacked, just annoying without any qol.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game has some interesting ideas but as others have stated, holy hell the translations are BAD. Needs a full sweep.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First up, please ignore all the people claiming this is just like Core Keeper or a ripoff. I can't help but feel they're not complaining about the game's merits and just want to raise a fuss, kind of like the flax Doom clones and SV-likes keep getting. So, if this isn't Core Keeper but is in the same genre of underground exploration, what is Return From Core? It's a very heavily story-focused, highly linear game where you meet, take care of, and grow closer to monster girls. There is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Can't rebind controls. Default controller bindings are horrible.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game looks like it could be fun and I want to enjoy it but it is very buggy and the translation just sucks, every once in a while there is no translation and the npc speaks to me in Chinese for a few sentences, and the translation quality is just plain old bad, I have the feeling they ran the game through a machine translator (which missed some text) and never even adjusted the menu's to fit the new text (your inventory menu has stats listed that show overlapping text) This game also looks…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Kinda bought this game would be like Palworld but top down with multiple monsters running your base while you go out with a team and do things. It's not that. There's one of each girl with each having their own little backstory for you to discover. Not what I expected but I still gave it a chance and it's just not great. Get it if you really need some monster girl dating sim in your life, but I feel like there are games that do each individual mechanic way better. Base building with semi…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →bad imput lag or unresponsive controls is so annoying
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For 17 bucks, not bad. But it needs a polish pass for sure. Many encounters of sound glitches, visual glitches on the upper floors, and a memory leak from extended play. Only solution is to close and restart the game. This isn't considering general performance issues with too many projectiles on screen, very common at endgame, and floor 7 itself just tanks frames.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is 1.0? I see what yall are going for, but heck, even the controls feels like a buggy mesh up of mouse key board and a controller, this just feels horrible.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lots of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bug, first 10 second into the game im stuck in a rock, then i slept on the bed and my chracter slide across the floor, there is more but ion wanna waste time
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I find this game so much more fun than the core keeper that everyone is comparing it to. Where core keeper bored me in about 10 hours or so, this one has a purpose, and a sense of progression, with the new people you enlist and the getting closer to the surface. Plus a dedicated large space to make a nice base. And, i think better art, but that can be subjective. Edit: Just finished the main quest. Skipped a lot of the side quests for now, will come back to play them later. Very nice story,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a buggy mess.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought this game looking to scratch the core keeper itch. Worth mentioning for the gals: you have a bunch of customization options for hair, clothing... but you cant be a woman. Every female character on the menu screen has a (o o) curated design. Clearly a specific demographic in mind. Could've worked with that but early in the game I had to restart it because it crashed. Translation is awful. There's few updates. Overall, I'll pass.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →no proper pause feature flunk ffs how is this such a gd fk prevalent issue with modern games full of bugs big and small as well as in need of soem serious QOL updates
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Obviously a rushed early access game. More than just corners cut. Significant issues, meaningless progression and unrewarding exploration. Not a bad game but would have been so much better if it wasnt rushed.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game for some points better then core keeper. Water pump need power to run not opposite xd. The better system for easy power is using coal i thing and auto put it on furnace
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ive had this game for a long while and its great and addicting! ITS NOT A CORE KEEPER RIP OFF EITHERRRRR. Its nothing like core keeper except mining and underground. This game has tons of automation and items and lots to do.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Before you decide on buying this game, you need to ask yourself a question - are you willing to put up with a really shaky translation (speaking of the English translation here)? If you can look past the rough translation, and occasional not-translated-at-all from simplified Chinese moments, there's a really fun game under the hood. The thing that drew me to it the most is the focus on story, notes to find, characters to unlock and invite to your base, RPG style quests, and character…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Would be nice, to have a female character... This game is exciting and great!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i had joined their discord channel and let me tell you...that community is not helpful at all i had asked 4 questions and only got 1 answer and that took 3 days. im not saying i need an answer in 30 min or less but people join discord because the community is supposed to be helpful not lacking in that department. now on to the game i felt that the game was great in all aspects cant wait for more content
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I look very much forward to this game. However, at this moment it is unplayable for me. I play on steamdeck and controller support barely works. Number of button presses to perform a single action like craft or manage inventory is crazy. Fighting enemies is nearly impossible because you have to press 'X' button and then aim with right stick. Thankfully, I can bind attack to back buttons on steamdeck. I've played for less than an hour but I've encountered several missing translations to english…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It starts off strong, but tapers off to meh. I fully cleared the first area, and what I found were a ton of cloned dungeons, 1 boss, and about 7 different enemy types. In 5 hours. The base building is fairly shallow. And the pretty large skill tree, which at first seems fun. Doesnt make much of a noticable difference in the game. The courting system seems pretty pointless. Everything in this game feels tacked on and shallow. No depth to a single part of this game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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