Core Keeper has just released one of their long-awaited biomes mentioned in its first Early Access Roadmap, the Shimmering Frontier, originally known as the Crystal Biome. Let’s see what new things we’ll find in this new update.

The easiest thing to identify quickly, and as the original name implies, is all the crystals. We got some crystal-looking bushes, trees, even a crystal-type slime, and something they have named the Crystal Mimicking Mimites and giant snails. The biome has a new main boss that you must fight in the water.

Now that we take a look at some of the new denizens of the crystalline cavern, we can see that we have a new ore to mine, called Solarite. This new ore plays a part in the equipment leveling system, along with making some of the new crystal decorations, new anvils, and armors, as well as what appears to be a new crossbow and a new roofing gadget tool that will allow you to bust through or repair the ceiling of the caves, along with a very ghostbuster-looking laser that you can use to harvest materials.

But not everything is mean and wants to kill you underground, as there are a lot of cute and cuddly animals to tame. A new leash tool was also added, and it can be used to get yourself a turtle, along with a myriad of other creatures, including baby versions of the animals, not to mention a baby king slime.

Winding down, it appears the new update has added a new merchant of sorts that might allow you to purchase a radiation suit to possibly explore some radiated or contaminated areas of the underground.

There are also new hairstyles and player customizations to play around with, and if you are a combat-ready player, there are some new battle events along with battle arenas to really test your skills, but we have been warned that you may want to level up your gear before attempting such feats as some of the enemies look fearsome with lasers shooting from their eyes and force fields.

Back in September 20^th they released the MOD SDK for Core Keeper to allow the very active Modders out there to create some awesome mods for the game, and now you will be able to directly search and add mods to your game from inside the game, directly from Mod.io.

And last but certainly not least, with this new area to explore, they have not forgotten about the other biomes in the game, as they have added 50 new pieces of armor and equipment, as well as new customs scenes, cattle, pets, boss drops, and more to find scattered all over the underground, to give you even more reason to check out your old stomping grounds.

I am excited to jump back into the game and explore the new biome. What are you most excited about in this update? Let me know in the comments below.