How to Use Core Keeper's New Saddle and Hookshot After the 1.3 Update
Core Keeper's Riders of the Underground update added rideable cattle and a Hookshot. Here's how to craft, mount and use both after three rounds of hotfixes.
Core Keeper's biggest update since its 1.0 launch is live, and it changes how you move through Pugstorm's underground as much as what you fight down there. Riders of the Underground, version 1.3, shipped on September 21 as the first of three major content drops on the developer's "Road to the Maw" roadmap, and it has already been patched four times since, most recently on September 30. Two additions define the update: a Saddle that turns ordinary cattle into mounts, and a Hookshot that lets you grapple across pits and water. Here is how to get both working, plus what three weeks of hotfixes have changed underfoot.
What Riders of the Underground Actually Adds
Alongside the Saddle and Hookshot, 1.3 introduces a new Moss sub-biome tucked inside the Forgotten Ruins, three craftable new pets, ten armor pieces, fifteen rings, fifteen necklaces, three new weapons and a full new weapon type built around Scepters for the Warlock playstyle. Minions no longer expire on a timer; instead two reworked Summoning talents let players choose when to dismiss them and spawn their full minion count in one action. The patch also reshuffles the entire Magic skill tree, adjusts mana regeneration so it keeps recharging at half strength while you are actively casting, and rebalances drop rates across most of the game's Titan bosses. It is a lot to take in at once, so the fastest way to feel the difference is to go try the two new traversal tools first.
How to Craft and Use the Saddle
The Saddle and its faster counterpart, the Racing Saddle, work directly on the cattle you already have roaming your base or wandering the surface and caves. Approach any tamed cattle while holding a Saddle and use it on the animal to mount it instantly; there is no separate taming step. Riding opens a new Saddle UI where you can rename your mount and set its out-of-saddle behavior, choosing whether it stays put, roams freely, or follows you around like a pet. Pull the Saddle back off and the animal returns to being ordinary cattle, free to graze or breed as before. One early bug let bosses permanently strip a mount when they attacked it, deleting the Saddle in the process; the September 29 stability patch fixed that, so mounts are no longer vulnerable to that specific loss. The only other catch worth knowing is a hotfix-era change requiring line of sight to use cattle, minecarts, boats and chairs, which mostly affects players who tried to mount an animal through a wall or fence.
How to Get and Aim the Hookshot
The Hookshot is a new off-hand item category with two variants available at launch, the base Hookshot and the upgraded Gilded Hookshot. Equip one in your off-hand slot and aim it at a wall, ledge or other solid surface to fire a grappling line that yanks you across gaps, chasms and water you would otherwise need a bridge or boat to cross. It is built for groups exploring together rather than solo speedrunning, since a party can cover ground in parallel instead of waiting for someone to lay down a path first. Because it only latches onto solid terrain, it will not pull you across an open void with nothing to hook into, so it complements boats and minecarts rather than replacing them entirely.
What the Hotfixes Changed Since Launch
Pugstorm has shipped four follow-up patches in nine days, a pace that signals how much the studio is still tuning the new systems. The September 22 hotfix fixed drills dealing damage on the very first power tick, which had broken circuitry builds that relied on timed drill sorting. The September 29 stability patch was the heaviest of the three, restoring mount durability against boss attacks, raising figurine drop rates for Void Cavelings, and quietly fixing dozens of smaller issues: cattle now wait for crops to fully grow before eating them, Torches can be placed on walls from close range again, and a long-standing bug that turned wall tops solid black is gone. The most recent fix, from September 30, targets spike traps, drills and other hazards that had stopped dealing damage, along with continuous damage sources that paused briefly before their first hit. If you are returning to a base built before 1.3, it is worth checking any automated trap or drill setup for the behavior these patches corrected.
Finding the Moss Sub-Biome and the New Pets
The Moss sub-biome sits inside the Forgotten Ruins and is described as a dark, humid pocket distinct from the dry ruins around it. It is home to the Orex, a new docile cattle type that looks like a small raptor but spends its time eating insects and Moorshrooms rather than hunting. Two of the update's three new pets, the frog-like Hoppet and Azeos Jr., can turn up as Pet Eggs while exploring with the new mounts and Hookshot; the third is left for players to find on their own in the Desert of Beginnings. None of the three require anything beyond normal exploration to unlock, so the practical tip is simply to carry spare Pet Eggs' worth of inventory space while testing the new traversal tools, since that is when most players are running into them.
Smaller Changes Worth Turning On
A handful of quality-of-life additions are easy to miss in a patch note list this long but worth enabling immediately. A new gear comparison tool lets you hold an item and see how its stats stack up against what you have equipped, which speeds up deciding whether a Titan drop is actually an upgrade. A key bind now lets you cycle through saved loadouts instead of opening a menu, and every paint brush can be resized up to a 5x5 area for faster base decorating. None of these require a fresh world or character; they are available immediately on any existing save once you update.
Core Keeper's next two updates, Trials of the Depths and Beyond the Breach, are expected to follow later on the same roadmap, with Pugstorm pitching the former as tougher end-game content for players who have already cleared the Titans. For now, Riders of the Underground is a free update for everyone who owns the game on Steam or console, with no separate purchase required to ride a cow across the Desert of Beginnings.
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 (@CoreKeeperGame) 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.
