Some time ago, the German studio Blankhans Coreborn (Steam) announced a new survival MMO. Over the weekend, the first alpha test took place. The MeinMMO editorial team checked out the game, and our survival expert Benedict Grothaus sees the potential.
What is Coreborn? Coreborn is based on the pen and paper rule set Ultracore. You play as one of the various tribes of a world being attacked by an extraterrestrial power. Your goal: survive and rebuild the world.
To achieve this, the game relies on classical survival and RPG elements like building, crafting, and action combat. Alone or with friends, you move through the world, build houses, villages, and fight enemies. The visuals are strongly in a comic style reminiscent of WildStar, WoW, or even Fortnite.
Behind the new survival MMO is the German studio Blankhans, where the story genius Hauke Gerdes works as creative director. Hauke is responsible for the game’s story.
You can see the story trailer here:
What did we test? The first alpha test ran from March 2 to March 5. However, there were frequent disconnections and at least one reset, as far as I could observe.
The experience you are reading here is based on approximately the first 4 hours in the still very incomplete game and is meant to be just a first glimpse at what Coreborn could be.
Good for beginners, very easy for veterans
Over the weekend, we played Coreborn as a group of four: colleagues Dariusz Müller, Maik Schneider, his fiancée Alicia, and myself. The constellation came about because we had just completed Sons of the Forest the evening before and the dynamic fits well.
We are all experienced survival players and managed to get along well and quickly with Coreborn. In the test, the capital, Coreheim, was full of NPCs, but none offered any interactions.
Accordingly, we quickly went through a portal into the open world and started. The first steps are somewhat difficult because you desperately look for resin and plant fibers for your first axe and pickaxe.
However, this hurdle is overcome after about half an hour to an hour. In the four-player team, we soon swam in resources, possessed even rarer materials, and had our own home with a village center.
Coreborn is quite straightforward. Wood comes from trees, meat from most animals, crafting assistance is available at every station and through the help button F1. Those who know survival games can build a first, good camp in no time.
I cannot yet estimate how difficult it will eventually become. But even now I see that the start is extremely beginner-friendly. Coreborn will be optimal for beginners who have had nothing to do with survival games before.
Building reminiscent of ARK
To provide a first insight into the building system, I hand over to Maik:
As soon as the first cheap axe is crafted, it’s time to build, because you can craft the building hammer. Upon opening the building menu, it was immediately clear: the dinosaur survival ARK is the template here. The radial menu is exactly like ARK, and the buildable parts strongly resemble those from the dinosaur adventure.
However, Coreborn pursues a different approach with a village center. The centers protect my base, can be expanded, and therefore unlock new dangers and recipes.
When building a base, you have to be very careful that the parts fit together correctly. Otherwise, you end up with gaps between the walls, roofs, and floors. With some experience, though, this can be managed well.
The base provides better workshops when expanding the village centers, and at higher levels, a kind of tower defense aspect is added. Expanded villages are regularly attacked and must be defended.
In principle, this sounds similar to the invasions from Conan Exiles, where enemies try to tear down your base if you build too much. However, we could not see that in the test.
Blankhans is quite ambitious with Coreborn. In an interview, the developers revealed that they want to have the same influence on survival MMOs that WoW had on MMORPGs. Interested in that venture, I checked out the first alpha. MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski has already spoken with the creators. In the one-hour interview, Hauke and his colleagues introduce Coreborn:
Action combat like in Conan Exiles
Since Maik is our dedicated builder, I focused primarily on testing the combat system and gathering meat, leather, and more during the test period. So far, my only weapon was a sword.
Nonetheless, the system already comes with combos and dodges that I know from Conan Exiles. With a little practice, you quickly learn the movements of the opponents and can kill them without taking any damage yourself.
While this is convenient for farming, it may become boring over time. Given that Coreborn also wants to entice players with strong enemies and special loot, I assume that there will be at least boss fights.
At least in the time I had, the system was fun. I enjoyed beating horses for their hides or goats for their moss and feathers. Yes … do not ask, Coreborn is a bit wild when it comes to imagination.
MeinMMO video producer Anna Alberg has also taken a look at Coreborn:
I was curious about the idea of Coreborn from the start. It sounded like a mix of Albion Online and the progenitor of MMORPGs, Ultima Online. I have always wanted to play a survival MMO where many people come together and shape the world.
I was lucky to be part of the alpha test of Coreborn, and I was pleasantly surprised that I was personally welcomed by the creative director, who explained the game to me. Even though the game still has many construction sites, it felt very familiar. Especially the building system was very simple and easy to handle; it was really fun to build my first town and set up the first crafting stations.
Due to the lack of a tutorial, I had to figure many things out on my own. I wandered aimlessly for a while, looking for resin, which was needed to craft the first axe. The help tips stated that you get resin from felled trees. Well, how do I fell a tree without crafting an axe first? Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it with my fists.
Then the sword came into play – I found out that I can fell trees with it, even though it took a bit longer. Even more surprising was when the tree next to me landed, and I took such a hit that I was almost dead.
Another thing that wasn’t immediately obvious and bothered me a little: how do I get my sword out now? While in most games, you already have your tool in hand and can simply use it with a mouse click, here you first had to pull out the weapon with the “Tab” key. On the other hand, what was very positive were the people participating in the alpha. Questions were kindly answered in the chat, and everyone shared their experiences.
Anna Alberg
Video producer at MeinMMO
Unfinished, but with a strong foundation
The first test was just that: a test primarily aimed at showing how stable the servers are running. As far as I could see, it ran pretty well. Many fundamental mechanics like actual character creation, professions, and certain UI elements were still completely missing.
For instance, I starved several times because I had few hit points and no food display. A growling stomach announces hunger and immediately drains health. And without hotkeys, I couldn’t eat fast enough.
However, all of these things are not too important for the first impression. The basic systems like combat and building already convey that Blankhans knows what they are doing.
Here’s a bit of gameplay from the alpha of Coreborn:
In the world, players were always visible somewhere, even during a relatively small test. It felt like a real survival MMO with housing and everything that comes with it.
I am curious to see how Coreborn will develop. The community has been actively providing feedback, and some of it has already been implemented in the test to improve the game. If the developers stay on top of it, Coreborn is indeed a contender for the title “King of Survival MMOs”:
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