Parents' Guide to ReCore

In collaboration with the Games Rating Authority, here’s our parent’s guide to RECORE.

Recore is an action shooting game set on an alien world in which the player controls a teenage girl, Joule Adams, and her team of robots, exploring the planet and fighting other robots.

The game is played from a third person perspective and is a combination of platform-jumping exploration, puzzle solving and combat against rogue corebots. It’s single player only.

Recore’s desolate world is reminiscent of Lost Planet, while its fast paced platforming and shooting recalls Ratchet and Clank.

In the UK and Europe, PEGI rates Recore PEGI 12, suitable for ages 12 and up for realistic looking violence against non-human characters, non-realistic looking violence towards human characters, and violence causing minor injury only.

The Games Rating Authority expands on its PEGI details by saying that Recore ‘features realistic violence towards fantasy characters, a robot dog character acts as a real dog would when hurt, sometimes whimpering and limping’ and that ‘Non-realistic violence to human characters is shown frequently, the characters have little to no reaction to being attacked, no blood/gore is shown, and when the character is defeated they simply fall to the floor as the screen fades to black’. There is some minor realistic violence towards human characters in cut scenes, but no realistic injuries.

Recore is set 200 years in the future, when humanity has abandoned a ravaged Earth and is colonising other planets. Joule Adams is a young colonist who emerges from cryosleep on the planet Far Eden to find the other colonists missing and the planet ruled by rogue corebots.

The cores at the heart of each ‘bot are the game’s key fictional conceit, somewhere between a power source and a soul. Cores can be extracted from corebots in combat, while mysterious prismatic cores can be found hidden around Far Eden. The colour of a core will affect the behaviour of a corebot, and combat is based around matching ammo colour to the colour of an enemy’s core for maximum damage.

Recore was conceived by Megaman and Onimusha creator Keiji Inafune, and developed by Inafune’s Comcept alongside Armature, a studio founded by veterans Nintendo’s Metroid Prime series.

Recore is available for XBox One and PC through Microsoft’s ‘Play Anywhere’ scheme that provides digital downloads for both formats, and costs around £30 or $40.

Recore’s main campaign has a playtime of around eight hours, although Recore is a tough game and might take much longer to complete even for experienced players. Finding every secret could take 14 hours or more.

Recore treads familiar post-apocalyptic SF territory, but Joule’s optimistic and youthful personality distinguishes the game from more grimdark militarised SF. With its PEGI 12 rating Recore is refreshingly free of blood and gore - its corebot vs corebot action relieved of the moral murk that comes with battling human enemies.

The emotional, if you’ll excuse the pun, core of the game is the relationship between Joule and her corebots. Dog-like Mack is her appointed companion at the start of the game, and has a convincingly canine body language and enthusiasm. Through the course of the game Joule will add spidery Seth and ape-like Duncan, both of whom bring their own personalities as well as abilities.

Recore has a bright, breezy appearance and a strong central idea in the corebots, but whether you warm to the game as a whole will depend on how you come to terms with the game’s idiosyncrasies. At the game’s heights its fluid movement and intricate combat system can feel novel and exciting.