Best starting backgrounds in Core Keeper: Which starting background should you choose?

With survival/action/groundskeeper simulator game Core Keeper finally having made the leap to consoles through Game Pass, thousands of players will be taking on their duties as the titular core keeper for the first time—but before you ever even start playing, you need to choose your background.

When creating your custom character, you’ll be asked to choose a background that affects their starting stats and potentially even contributes a few extra bonuses. There are a lot of these, and the bonuses they provide won’t mean much to a new player. The good news, however, is that there’s one background that is almost always the best one to pick save for a few niche cases.

What’s the best character background in Core Keeper?

There are 10 character backgrounds in Core Keeper, which are as follows:

• Explorer
• Miner
• Fighter
• Chef
• Gardener
• Fisherman
• Ranger
• Mage
• Warlock
• Nomad (which carries no bonus)

While Fighter might stick out by granting you a starting weapon, that Copper Sword will be outpaced fairly quickly. Rather, the best starting class to choose is Explorer. Explorer comes with three bonus levels in the Running skill, a free lantern, and pre-packed food rations, giving you everything you need to explore your world and find the resources you need to start keeping that core without too much stress. Given you’re going to spend most of the early game running away from enemies rather than engaging directly with them, that extra speed might also save your life—especially if you’re playing on Hard.

Of course, that’s not to say the other backgrounds don’t have their uses, whether you’re a more seasoned player or you just like roleplaying while playing with friends. The good thing about sandbox games is you can play them however you like—so if you’d rather face the monsters of Core Keeper with a frying pan than a sword, more power to you. It’s a gaming tradition, after all.