Core is an app that blurs the line between modding and full-on, consumer-level video game development software. The Unreal Engine-powered titles you make are locked to Core's PC ecosystem, but the software lets you create and share 3D games—and earn money as people play them. Core's excellent community support and content libraries make it easy for amateurs to tackle complex genres. Still, GameMaker, with its easy yet powerful tools that teach practical skills, remains our Editors’ Choice winner if you want to start a game development career.
What Is Core?
Based on the powerful and ubiquitous Unreal Engine, Core lets you make full 3D games. GameMaker and other competing engines may offer limited 3D support (if they even offer it!), but Core is designed for pushing polygons. Specifically, Core excels at multiplayer shooters. From first-person, team-based deathmatches to third-person battle royales, Core’s tools and templates lean hard toward guns and expansive maps. You’ll play shockingly faithful recreations of popular titles like Counter-Strike and Halo.
In many ways, Core games feel like modern successors to the hobbyist mod scene from PC gaming’s early days; think Doom WADs for a new generation. However, this also gives many games an unpolished, almost bootleg quality. There can be a dissonance between the engine's graphical fidelity and the titles' amateurish feel. Some maps are poorly thought-out, some art styles are incoherent, and some mechanics aren't that balanced or fun. This is more of an issue with the creators, not the tools. But while there are plenty of awesome Core experiences, sometimes Core feels more like a souped-up level editor. 2D games made with Construct or Stencyl may be more limited and humble, but they feel like complete standalone works.
Core's moderation policy explicitly forbids overtly violent or sexual games, and encourages you to report offensive content and users. I didn't encounter anything inappropriate while browsing the game catalog.
Similar Products
GameMaker
Construct
Godot
AppGameKit Studio
Stencyl
Fuze4 (for Nintendo Switch)
Twine
Still, even if the results are rough, it's genuinely impressive to see how people stretch the tool, especially in other genres. Besides shooters, I played minigolf games, a My Hero Academia RPG, and even a recreation of Ghost 'n Goblins. Forgiving the unrefined experiences is easy because they don’t exist independently. Every Core game resides inside one interconnected social hub, a Fortnite-style colorful and cartoony sci-fi virtual space. Core itself is a professional product, and is no longer in early access.
Price and Platforms
Core is free. Just download it from the Epic Games Store. Like Godot or Twine, it costs nothing to make games, and you don’t need to pay for assets or resources. It’s all open to the community.
Instead, the shop sells cosmetics for your customizable avatar. Spend a few bucks to get a new outfit, hoverboard, or mount. Other people can see your avatar, not just in the social hub, but in some games. This self-expression isn’t meaningless. As you play more games, your character completes quests and levels up. That grants you even more cosmetic rewards.
Core is only available on Windows PCs. The software is a locked platform, so you can’t publish games as self-contained products anywhere else. That's a big limitation that you'll also find in Fuze4. GameMaker charges hundreds of dollars for console publishing licenses but offers that option. AppGameKit lets you write code for mobile games using a free mobile app. Core may not support consoles, but it's compatible with controllers, keyboards, and mice
Core can still be a potentially lucrative endeavor, though. If you make enough popular games, you can monetize them with gameplay perks or in-game upgrades. You spend real money on Core Credits to buy these perks, and developers split the revenue 50/50 with Core’s parent company, Manticore Games. It’s like being a Twitch streamer, but for game development. Core has removed its cryptocurrency integration.
Along with the social hub, Core also highlights games in a nifty Steam-esque storefront with screenshots, user comments, patch notes, and a tagging system. The most popular titles had nearly half a million plays, but I don’t know what that equates to regarding payouts. Note that you can’t create gambling games loaded with in-app purchases.
Developing Games With Core
Core positions itself as the next step up from kid-friendly development games, such as Game Builder Garage or Super Mario Maker. It even offers advice for aspiring developers graduating from Minecraft, Roblox, or Fortnite’s creative mode. Make no mistake: Like any true 3D game development tool, Core is inherently complex. It also markets itself to Unity users, and that’s a very professional tool. Still, Core attempts to make that complexity accessible without sacrificing depth.
A big way Core accomplishes this is by offering to do much of the work for you. You don’t need to start from scratch when you create a project. You can choose a genre template (think battle royale or deathmatch) and customize from there. Conversely, you can download a finished game and start tweaking. You can still access premade objects and rulesets even if you want to make a wholly original game. In fact, you can import community content into your projects. It didn’t take long for me to start blasting a shotgun in a test room full of basketballs or infinitely jumping up staircases to nowhere.
In the visual editor, you’ll spend much time manipulating objects in 3D space while editing their properties (like collision) in the side windows. Create complicated, custom objects by resizing and combining simple ones before wrapping them in a new material texture. Organize objects in the hierarchy to ensure the correct rules apply to the correct objects. Thoroughly test your game before publishing. Multiplayer preview mode lets you see how your game performs with people playing.
Core uses the Lua programming language. You can use the optional text coding tools and the visual editor for more advanced editing (or open another text editor instead of the integrated one). Core's prewritten scripts mean you don’t need to write one from the ground up. Knowing how to code is an important aspect of game development, but not making it mandatory keeps Core from becoming too overwhelming.
Core provides plenty of great documentation, tutorials, and videos to aid you throughout development. Since it is a social space, you can become friends with fellow Core creators. You can also visit community Discord and Twitch channels for advice, examples, and support.
Can Your PC Run Core?
Core is as much a PC game as a game development tool, so you’ll want to ensure your PC can run the software before you install it. I had to lower a few graphical settings to get Core to run smoothly on my aging laptop, which suggests the game should be at least playable on, say, laptops at schools interested in the tool’s educational value.
Manticore Games recommends that your Windows-powered PC has at least an Intel Core i5-7400 or AMD equivalent CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or AMD equivalent GPU, and 8GB of RAM. As you test your game and add more objects, Core will tell you if you’ve reached the limit of what your PC can handle.
Why You Should Game on a PC
Verdict: An Impressive Tool for Making 3D Shooters
Despite some rough edges, Core lets you make impressive video games. As a free tool, it's a wonderful place to start making 3D video games before moving on to something as powerful as the Unreal Engine. That said, GameMaker remains our Editors’ Choice winner for consumer video game development software. It better balances ease of use with real utility for independent creators looking to launch their careers.
Core is free game development software that lets you make 3D multiplayer shooters without knowing how to code.
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