TA Playlist Wrap-Up – ReCore

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But if anyone could set things right… Joule, I knew it would be you.

Things in life don’t always go according to plan, and that’s especially true when it comes to storytelling. It doesn’t matter if your hero is trying to win the game, defeat the villain, or save humanity from extinction, you just know that whatever plans they come up with are going to go sideways at the first opportunity, because that’s when the story gets interesting. But what do you do when the plan has gone wrong before the story even starts?

That’s the setup for the May 2023 TA Playlist game of the month, which won a somewhat surprising victory in a second-chance poll featuring four games that were previously nominated but didn’t win the vote. When the dust settled, it was the 2016 3D Metroidvania platformer ReCore that emerged victorious.

ReCore was developed by Comcept and Armature Studio, with assistance from Asobo Studio, and published by Xbox Game Studios. Notably, this was the first “Xbox Play Anywhere” title, offering gamers the ability to purchase the game once and be able to play the same content on both console and PC.

Comcept designed the world, characters, and story, based on creator (and Mega Man veteran) Keiji Inafume’s vision of surviving in a world on the verge of human extinction, while Armature Studio, formed by designers who worked on Metroid Prime 3, handled the technical assets. These influences were often touted as one of the game’s strengths by critics and fans.

Kirkless said:

Definitely some Metroid Prime vibes in this one. Great game but a little long for the full 100%.

The story is set 200 years in the future, where a devastating disease known as the Dust Devil Plague is threatening to destroy all life on Earth. An organization called “The Mandate” was at the forefront of efforts to fight the plague, but eventually turned their attention to abandoning Earth and evacuating the survivors to a new world, which they named “Far Eden.”

The plan was to put the human colonists in cryostasis in orbit around the new planet, while thousands of autonomous terraforming machines were sent down to convert its dusty, barren surface into something a bit more hospitable. But something has gone wrong, and atmospheric maintenance technician Joule Adams awakens from cryo-sleep to find that the nearest terraforming pylon has been offline for nearly a hundred years. Even worse, the robots that were supposed to be preparing the planet have become corrupted and aggressive, attacking Joule and her dog-like corebot companion, Mack.

With no way of knowing what’s gone wrong, Joule and Mack set out to restore power to the colony’s systems, hoping that bringing power back online will allow the terraforming equipment to resume its work. Along the way, they learn that the corebots’ behavior is not simply a mechanical malfunction, but rather a full-blown revolution against humanity by the corebots’ leader, Victor, who wants to claim all the rare and powerful Prismatic Cores for himself, leading to an inevitable showdown that could decide the fate of humanity.

It seems that for most of the commenters in our forums, this overall narrative was one of the weaker parts of the game…
GrimaceTheGrey said:

This was actually one I avoided thinking I wouldn't like it until my friend played it and couldn't stop talking about it. Ended up loving the gameplay, and challenges in the game. The story was a bit meh... "Humans leave earth, humans use robots to prepare new planet, robots become self-aware, robots label humans as the enemy." It’s definitely been done but was still fun.

Allgorhythm said:

The lack of a compelling story in general and a good bad guy, in particular, are the game's biggest weaknesses. Victor has done some egregious things, but they are presented kind of matter-of-fact, so they don't get your blood boiling. The framework of an interesting plot is there, but it is not presented in a dramatically intense manner.

One of our regular commenters summed up the ending of the game pretty well, but this is overtly spoiler territory, so you might want to skip the spoiler tag if you haven’t made it past the final boss yet:

*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***

While the story may have had its shortcomings, it seems that for most of the people who commented in our forums, that wasn’t the appeal anyway. When discussing ReCore’s positive attributes, most people focused on other aspects, such as combat, platforming, and general world exploration.
pezboyben said:

Well, now that I've played it for a decent chunk of time, I can say that I don't care about the story at all, I'm not a fan of the combat, but I am thoroughly enjoying running around the world trying to find all of the items.

ReCore gives the natural explorers a decent amount of stuff to find in the world, from audio logs that help flesh out the game’s backstory to new parts and blueprints for upgrading your corebots. Collectibles like this tend not to be very well received by the community, especially when they’re tied to achievements, but several of our commenters said they really enjoyed searching Far Eden’s open landscapes.
Allgorhythm said:

The world is pretty good and is fun to explore. I got all the collectibles without a guide and never felt it was tedious. The combat was good. Extracting a core--especially an instant extract--never failed to excite.

Platforming and dungeon-crawling are also key aspects of the game, but unlike many Metroidvania titles, Joule already starts the game with double-jump and dash abilities, thanks to her exoframe’s thrusters. Instead of upgrading Joule’s abilities and equipment, the primary focus here is to upgrade your corebots and choose the right build to face the challenges ahead.
Spa1h said:

I still remember it being a solid Metroidvania, with interesting challenges, and many retries for gaining all secondary objectives in those platforming dungeons. However, compared to Ubisoft open worlds, or even Mad Max (what I consider a pretty similar game) ReCore is NOT a Grindfest. I strongly recommend to check it out ;)

In addition to Mack, a canine corebot with the ability to dig up items, Joule is eventually joined by Seth, an arachnid corebot that she can use to climb up walls and access new areas, and finally, Duncan, a gorilla-like corebot who can smash boulders and other obstacles to open up new pathways. You’ll use these abilities not only to explore new areas to advance the story but also to traverse optional challenge dungeons that offer additional equipment and rewards.
Adayin said:

I thought the challenge dungeons were one-off skill sets that you might not use anywhere else in the game, which usually frustrates me. Spend 3 hours repeating this three-minute section to master a technique you'll never use again! But Recore actually builds on those skills across dungeons, and many of the tricks I used to get through came in quite handy toward the end of the game!

Combat was another strong point, according to many in the forums. Joule only has one weapon, a machine gun, but through the course of the game, she gains the ability to imbue shots with various colors of energy, which can be used to deal extra damage to similarly-colored enemies. In addition, she can update her corebots with different builds and abilities to enhance their combat effectiveness. The main complaint about the combat, according to some of our commenters, was that it started strong, but became boring after a while.
Cylon 118 said:

I have been enjoying what I have played so far. The platforming is fun and works well even in 3d, which is not normally as good, in my opinion, but the combat is lackluster and kind of repetitive. Made slightly better by the mix-and-match companions, but it slows everything down, especially in the shifting sands zone where you can be overwhelmed so easily. I kind of like collecting things, so not finding that part too tedious, to be honest, but I can see why it would frustrate some!

VirtuMint said:

Not one I can ever say has held much appeal for me, pretty much all I've heard about it is it starts off quite good, then degenerates into a boring slog that takes far longer than any fun in the game lasts for. I'll give it a miss, I think.

Regarding the above quote, I tend not to include comments in these articles from people who have never played the game in question, but there were quite a few posts this month expressing a similar sentiment, so whether it’s a fair criticism or not, this seems to be a fairly widespread impression. Perhaps this also explains why so many players started the game with some interest but eventually put it down and moved on to other things without getting to the end. Thankfully, many of them were able to come back with fresh eyes and see it through.
JeremyX103 said:

I first played it ages ago, not long after launch, and was a bit lost on it. Picked up on it during Covid and finished it, wound up loving the game. Great Playlist target.

FoolsAndKings said:

I started this game ages ago and got a bit bogged down with it as I didn't do much upgrading on my helpers. I went back to it for an MS Rewards challenge the other month and absolutely loved it. I've never been a platform games fan, but this is great fun and, with the right Bot Help fairly straightforward and well worth anyone’s time.

o Heres Jonny o said:

It took me 3 times starting this game to play it all the way through, there seems to be a massive difficulty spike partway through, which stopped me a couple of times. A solid 3 out of 5 in the end without the frustrations of poor combat, it would have been more.

Much like Far Eden itself, ReCore needed quite a bit of terraforming after its initial launch, met with a fair bit of criticism, mostly centered on technical issues such as long load times and frequent crashes. In response, the Definitive Edition update was released a year later, in 2017. In addition to faster load times and other bug fixes, the Definitive Edition added new challenge dungeons and additional content to address some of the concerns about the repetitiveness later in the game.
GrimaceTheGrey said:

Recore is definitely an underrated game. It had a rocky start with bugs and such at launch, and while I am not excusing it, game is definitely in a good spot right now. If you like open-world games, it’s definitely worth playing.

DynamicWolfNLD said:

I played ReCore a few years ago, but was stuck on one of the final battles of the story. For some reason, I just didn't start it up again, even though I do remember enjoying it. The TA Playlist was a perfect opportunity to get back in. I looked up the WT which suggested leaving the final part of the story for after the miscellaneous stuff. I still had a lot to explore anyway, and I had fun doing that. I also enjoyed the Dungeons a lot, most were pretty easy, but some provided a good challenge. When I got back to the part I was stuck on a few years ago, this time, it was no match for me at all. Beat it easily. Overall, I really enjoyed the gameplay of ReCore and was glad it won the TA Playlist this month.

During the month of May, 1,004 tracked gamers unlocked at least one achievement in ReCore, with 462 of those starting it for the very first time, and 28 popping the last of the game’s 73 achievements for the completion. In total, the community unlocked 9,922 ReCore achievements during the month, for a total of 215,950 Gamerscore and 450,301 TrueAchievement Score.
The most common achievement during the month was DING!, for leveling up a corebot, with 448 total unlocks. The rarest was Split Focus, unlocked just 29 times during the month of May, which requires you to kill three enemies in one second with Split Shot, a new firing mode in the Definitive Edition update.

Congratulations to everyone who pushed through and completed the game this month, and a special Shout-Out to the eight individuals who managed to play the entire game from start to finish during May. Top honors for the month go to Reelbiggerfish, who completed the entire game in just 95 hours and 9 minutes, from May 9 to May 13, and clocked in just one minute faster than runner-up TheNeonShadow97, who started the game on May 3 and completed it in 95 hours and 10 minutes on May 7. Great work to all of you!

June is almost over already (time flies during GTASC!), but there’s still some time to join in with the World’s Greatest Detective in this month’s TA Playlist game, Batman: The Telltale Series. Don’t forget to leave a comment in the Spoiler-Free and Spoiler Discussion Threads to tell us what choices you made during this unique take on the Caped Crusader.

Finally, the voting is still open for the July 2023 TA Playlist poll, with four of the best Xbox Game Pass games of the last several months up for nomination. Choose wisely, and we’ll see you next month!

Thanks to BetaSigX20 for writing this Wrap-Up!

More ReCore stories:

TA Playlist

Written by The TA Playlist Team

The TA Playlist is a monthly community event. Everyone votes on which of four games to play, and then we all play through it in the following month. There's a dedicated hub to discuss everything about the game, from story beats to gameplay tips – and of course, you can track your achievement progress during the month as well. TA Playlist was created by Mark Delaney and is now run by Miles, Nici and Chewie.