How to Tame a Mount and Use the Hookshot in Core Keeper's 1.3 Update
Core Keeper's free Riders of the Underground update adds rideable mounts, a grappling Hookshot and a Moss sub-biome. Here's how to unlock all three.
Core Keeper's biggest content drop of the year is live. On September 21, developer Pugstorm and publisher Fireshine Games shipped Riders of the Underground, a free update that gives every player a way to ride, swing and dig deeper into the game's procedurally generated caves. It is the first of three major updates on a roadmap the studio calls the Road to the Maw, and it lands simultaneously on Steam, Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Here is what actually changed and how to get your hands on the new mounts and traversal tools without digging through the entire patch note list yourself.
What Riders of the Underground Actually Adds
The headline features are a mounting system built around a new Saddle item, a grappling Hookshot, and a Moss sub-biome tucked inside the Forgotten Ruins. Alongside those, Pugstorm added three new pets (including the frog-like Hoppet and a baby Azeos), nine new magic Scepters for a reworked Warlock playstyle, a Sniper Rifle, ten new armor pieces and dozens of new rings and necklaces. Minions were also reworked so they no longer expire on a timer, and two new Summoning skill-tree talents were added to reflect that change. The full patch notes run well past a hundred individual changes, covering everything from boss loot chests to modding tools.
None of it requires starting a new world. Everything drops into existing saves the moment you update, and a hotfix released two days later (1.3.0.2) already patched a bug where drills damaged items on the first tick after losing power, which had been breaking circuit-based sorting builds.
How to Turn Any Cattle Into a Mount
Mounts in 1.3 are not a separate creature type. Any tameable cattle already wandering the caves, Moolins, Bambucks, Strolly Polys, Kelpies, Dodos, Drohmbles and the new Orex, can become a mount the moment you place a Saddle on it. Walk up to the animal you want and use the Saddle directly on it, and it immediately becomes rideable.
- A standard Saddle rides at 95% of your normal movement speed.
- The Racing Saddle rides at 110% speed, useful once you have a mount you plan to keep.
Once saddled, a new Saddle UI lets you rename the mount and set how it behaves when you are not riding it, so it will not just wander off. Pull the saddle back off whenever you want, and the animal returns to ordinary cattle status with no harm done. There is no penalty for experimenting, so it is worth saddling a few different cattle types before settling on a permanent ride.
Because every existing cattle type can be saddled, you do not need to reach the new Moss sub-biome to start riding today: any cattle you have already tamed in your current save qualifies the moment you own a Saddle. Treat the Orex as a bonus stop for later, and use whichever cattle you already have penned in as your first test ride while you decide whether the extra top speed of a Racing Saddle is worth the crafting cost over the standard version.
Reaching New Areas With the Hookshot
The other new traversal tool is the Hookshot, a grappling item that latches onto solid surfaces like walls and pulls you straight across pits and open water. It joins walking, minecarts, boats, go-karts and Portals as another way to get around the underground, and it is the fastest way to cross a chasm without building a bridge first. Two versions exist: the base Hookshot and a Gilded Hookshot with improved reach, both usable from the off-hand slot alongside your main weapon.
Vehicles got a safety net to go with all this new mobility, too. Boats, minecarts and go-karts no longer end up on your grave marker if you die, they now drop and land in your inventory instead if you were seated in one at the time, and go-karts picked up a handbrake button along with tighter turning. Waypoints and Portals also activate faster than before, which matters more now that hookshotting between them is a realistic way to travel.
Finding the Moss Sub-Biome and Its New Cattle
The Moss sub-biome sits inside the Forgotten Ruins and stands out immediately: it is darker, damper and noticeably greener than the rest of that biome. It is also the only place to find the Orex, a raptor-shaped but entirely docile cattle that spends its time eating insects and snuffling up Moorshrooms, a new cooking ingredient that restores health and adds a glow effect when eaten. Orex hatchlings can be found nearby too, and like every other cattle type, an Orex can be saddled the same way once you track one down. The sub-biome also comes with its own hazards: two new enemies, the flying Wingling and the Searpent, show up alongside the usual Forgotten Ruins threats, so it is worth clearing a path before you start hunting for cattle rather than while riding one.
Quality-of-Life Changes Worth Turning On First
Two community-requested features shipped alongside the new content. A gear-comparison tooltip now shows how a new item stacks up against whatever you currently have equipped before you commit to swapping, and a new key bind lets you cycle through saved loadouts without opening a menu. Beyond that, the paintbrush tool used for base building can now cover up to a 5x5 area instead of a fixed single tile, and reconnecting after a disconnect now correctly restores your character's health from the server's last known state rather than the client's.
The minion overhaul is worth a special mention for Summoner builds specifically: minions persist indefinitely instead of expiring, you can now choose when to despawn them, and a new action lets you spawn your full minion cap in one go with no cooldown attached.
What's Next on the Road to the Maw
Riders of the Underground is explicitly framed as the opening chapter rather than a standalone update. Pugstorm has already named the next two stages of the roadmap: Trials of the Depths (1.4), built around higher-difficulty content, and Beyond the Breach (1.5), centered on a new biome beyond the area known as Breaker's Reach. Neither has a release date yet, but the studio's decision to ship 1.3 on its own rather than waiting for all three at once suggests the follow-up updates won't take as long as some players are bracing for.
It's the moment you've been waiting for, Explorers ✨ #CoreKeeper's 1.3 update, Riders of the Underground, is out now! Travel across the underground on rideable mounts, uncover the new Moss sub-biome, jump over chasms with the new Hookshot...and more!
— Core Keeper - Out Now! (@CoreKeeperGame), Sep 21, 2026 on X
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Sam writes about small studios and the games they ship against the odds, and turns the hardest parts of them into guides that get to the point.
