KYORA: Pugstorm's Ambitious Pixel Sandbox, Still Cooking After a Year of Teases

In the indie sandbox scene, Pugstorm's follow-up to Core Keeper — the underground mining hit that has now sold over 5 million copies — continues to generate buzz more than a year after its reveal at The Game Awards 2024. KYORA, a 2D multiplayer adventure from the Swedish studio and publisher Chucklefish, lets players manipulate every pixel in a procedurally generated world through mining, building, and explosive terraforming. It carries clear echoes of Terraria's progression loops, Noita's wand-based physics mayhem, and Core Keeper's co-op base-building, but with a fresh emphasis on reality-bending tools and biome bosses.

 

Pugstorm's Proven Track Record, Split Across Projects

Pugstorm, founded in 2018 by Game Director Fredrik Präntare and Julian Seifert-Olszewski, runs as a remote-first team of about 35. Their breakout Core Keeper (full release August 2024) nailed co-op digging and crafting, while the earlier Radical Rabbit Stew (2020) showed strong puzzle design. A dedicated KYORA team keeps Core Keeper updates coming — the next major “Void & Voltage” expansion arrives on all platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2, on January 28, 2026.

This parallel development is a double-edged sword: it keeps Core Keeper alive but has led some fans on r/Kyora and Steam forums to complain about perceived “radio silence” and doubt the original 2025 Early Access window.

Gameplay: Terraforming Meets Wand Chaos

KYORA’s core loop is built around true pixel-level manipulation in a side-scrolling open world. Mine, sculpt, or blast terrain in real time — physics behave much like Noita’s falling-sand simulation but scaled for up to eight-player co-op base-building similar to Core Keeper. Players gather materials to craft wands that shoot projectiles, raise barriers, or warp matter, then face massive “Herald” biome bosses that demand creative use of the environment.

Recent dev clips have shown chain-reaction explosions, slippery cave physics, dynamic audio echoes, underground secrets, and weather systems — all signs that the promised emergent chaos is alive and well.

Pixel Art Polish and Co-op Potential

The game’s lush, fully reactive pixel art — dripping water, rumbling caves, distance-based echoes — already looks outstanding. Custom environment tools hint at deep base-building potential, and the published minimum specs (i5-8400 / Ryzen 7 2700X, GTX 1060 / RX 580, 8 GB RAM) keep it accessible on Windows and Linux.

The Road Ahead: Promise, Perils, and Player Feedback

Steam Early Access is now simply listed as “coming soon” with no firm date attached, strongly suggesting a 2026 (or later) launch. Pugstorm plans to follow the same community-driven roadmap that served Core Keeper so well, but legitimate questions remain:

• Will wand-crafting reach Noita-level depth or stay more guided like Core Keeper?
• How will per-pixel destruction perform in chaotic eight-player sessions, especially on lower-end machines?
• Can the studio avoid Early Access scope creep while still supporting another live game?

Fan impatience is real, yet every new X post and dev blog (most recently covering pixel terraforming in March and world generation in June) shows steady, high-quality progress.

Why Wishlist Now?

KYORA has all the ingredients to become the next great co-op sandbox: Pugstorm’s proven knack for emergent fun, Chucklefish’s publishing polish, and a clear love for reactive pixels. If the team nails performance and keeps the feedback loop tight, it could easily sit alongside Terraria and Core Keeper in the genre’s hall of fame.

The pixels are waiting.