In an era of remakes and rehashes I am always thankful to come across something that feels genuinely fresh and weird… or as fresh as a bunch of rotting cadavers can be. Corpse Keeper is a game with a lot of problems and I am not going to sit here and tell you the negative reviews are wrong. Yet… somehow it managed to win me over, in the same way a puppy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on your rug can be kind of endearing. Sure there is a bit of a mess but I tell myself “Awww, it’s trying” under baited breath while I fetch cleaning supplies . Given the game does a pretty bad job of explaining itself, I set about writing a guide to help people on their way to conquer their demons… literally.

Note: At the time of writing this guide I had beaten the 3rd demon, I have now defeated the final difficulty (but not the true ending). Guide has not been updated yet to reflect new knowledge.

So what even is Corpse Keeper? It’s like someone took Darkest Dungeon and thought:

“You know what this needs, a poorly thought out 1v1 duelling system filled with that parrying mechanic modern games LOVE”

You and your merry band of macabre mercenaries must make your way through different dungeon like areas, fighting bad guys to collect their bones and flesh for your own army while looting various equipment to bolster your strength. Your goal is to defeat the hero(es) which will open up the way for you to challenge the demon in its temporarily vulnerable state. Beat that and then do the whole thing over again, but with new bad guys/potential allies and occasionally new mechanics.

You only have 15 days though so manage both your time and corpses wisely lest they turn to dust moments before the final showdown.

Important Note: To me this game feels god awful on a mouse and keyboard, I highly recommend you grab a controller before playing this title. Any button prompts I refer to in this guide will be based on the Xbox Controller layout.

Decay

Sadly our protagonist was a C student at best and while he has mastered the ability to resurrect the dead he can’t seem to stop them falling apart. Going on ventures into the dungeon and being defeated will increase the decay rating on a corpse, if it gets over 100 then it will collapse into nothing and leave your party a member down. Decay cannot be removed but the build up can be partially prevented using preservatives. Decay will be applied to any corpse bought into a dungeon regardless of if they fight or not.

Each successive preservative is less effective than the last with the first preventing 16% of the decay, the second and additional 8% (24% total) etc. The amount of decay for each dungeon depends on the level and is shown on level select.

Bone Stress

Push your skeletons too far and they start to fracture. Constantly fighting and being hit will fill a bar at the bottom right of the fight screen. If you get hit once it’s full, something snaps and your bone stress level goes up. Not a problem if it happens once but past Bone Stress Level 4 you start taking extra damage from all attacks. Some items do reward you for being at high stress levels however…

Balance


Attacking an enemy who does not perfectly parry or doing a perfect parry yourself will increase the balance meter. When full you will stun the enemy and get a free attack. Be warned, you have your own meter in the bottom left

Combo


There is also a momentum based system to the combat where continuous fighting and blocking builds up a combo meter at the bottom of the screen, bigger combo, higher damage multiplier. In theory this leads to an interesting trade off, do I press the fight to keep my combo meter up and risk additional stress levels or do I ease off and reset the combo to keep stress levels low. Personally I find bone stress is easy enough to treat that keeping the pressure up is the better option of the two.

Depth

Why would you call this depth? Seriously? Think of this as a mastery system for each character. Instead of decorating your lair with the skulls of your enemies like a baller, you will instead chuck them into the bonfire to increase your Depth on a given character. Higher depth levels means more potential bonuses when you construct a corpse. More on this later.

Welcome to base camp, homely isn't it? This is where you will be resting between missions, creating new corpses and tinkering with your equipment as well as pouring blood and skulls into the game’s meta progression system, more on that later. For now let’s take you on a tour of all the areas you will be interacting with, from right to left.


Who doesn’t love a good book? Apparently the necromancer because the bookshelf is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trash. If you are really stuck for a day with no flesh to repair your corpses and you would rather let them heal for a day then venture out into the dungeon then you can opt to enjoy a leisurely novel instead. This will grant you a boon that affects the following day.


You know what else would grant extra bones? Spending the day murderhobing your way through the nearest library, it would have the bonus of granting experience and loot too. The fact you can’t even tell what bonus you are going to get from reading makes this an especially poor gamble, this would be a fully wasted day if I planned to tackle a hero the next day.


Let’s move onto something more interesting. The bonfire is one of the game’s two forms of meta progression. As you slaughter enemies you often get the option to take their skull as a trophy. Instead of fashioning them into some sort of ornate candelabra we instead have the far less creative option to burn them.


Burning the skull of a given character will upgrade it’s “depth” with each level of depth raised costing more skulls than the last. Higher tier corpses also come with higher maximum depth levels. For example a paltry bandit only has 3 tiers of upgrades while his Boss the Bandit Leader has up to 7.

Each level of depth allows a character to have one additional effect added to it during creation:



As an example my Nun is unable to be created with the Clean Construction ability because I am not at the last depth level however it can be created with all of the previous 4. A number of these abilities are just flat out character boosts that I would want to take on anyone I plan to run against bosses, other are more optional. I would always advise burning skulls rather than turning them to bone dust because it’s a long climb to max depths on some characters. You can get any needed bone dust from bones of characters you don’t intend to use.


Here you have two options.

If you have 5 bones of any character, you can turn them in to create a skeleton that you can then resurrect to fight on your team using 10 flesh.
Any spare bones or skulls you no longer need can be ground into Bone Dust which is used in the creation and repair of corpses.
If you have created a skeleton you can also see it’s potential powers as in the screenshot above.


Skeletons created? Time to assemble the dream team. The coffins serve as your roster.


Every foe with the exception of bosses and prisoners are a potential ally to slot in to the team. Empty slots can be filled with a skeleton and 10 meat. During this creation process you can infuse a corpse with additional items to grant it abilities provided you have depth levels.


Above we can see that using a herb in the creation of this bandit will grant him the Lingering Exp ability allowing him to start at level 2 and the Decay Protection ability preventing the ill effects of being defeated in combat. In cases where an item unlocks multiple abilities you still only need one of the item in question to unlock both. You will frequently juggling limited resources so double check which abilities you are actually willing to pay for.

WATCH OUT FOR WILD SOUL — One specific upgrade called Wild Soul makes your character uncontrollable and they will fight by themselves. Unless you have a number of items that buff specifically this state, it’s a quick way to get your corpse desecrated even further.


We can also use the coffins to maintain our existing corpses, preservatives can be applied to reduce the decay a corpse suffers on it’s next run. Use spare flesh to restore their health or use Bone dust and a day of rest to heal their fractures. Health does get naturally restored over time if the corpse isn’t used for a day but it’s at a fairly slow rate so don’t be afraid to shove your meat in (consensually of course) if you need them back in the field quicker. There is also a salvage option hidden at the bottom for if you want to free up a space and get some minor resources back.

The other very important option here is that you can give your corpse’s equipment. Let’s talk gear.


Corpse Keeper does a bad job of making you aware that equipment is actually pretty important. In theory you could beat this game with supreme skill and perfect parries but realistically a lot of fights have a hidden stat check to actually become fairly beatable. At the equipment table you can take two actions:

1. Use Iron to reroll the properties on a piece of equipment but keep the rarity level
2. Use Gold to increase the rarity level of an item increasing it’s ability effectiveness and it’s passive benefits.

Equipment notes

• Equipment offers both a passive defence or magic defence bonus depending on the equipment as well as an ability because of this it’s worth equipping items in empty slots even if you don’t benefit from the ability.
  
• The number of items any character can equip is equal to it’s level.
  
• Each character can only equip one item per “category” with the exception of rings. I.e. one armour, one helmet, one necklace.
  
• Many abilities seem useless but apply to very specific characters, enemies or builds such as items that only apply to Wild Soul characters or ones that reward alternating between weapon attacks and kicks.
  
• It’s an absolute faff but equipment on corpses that are not active is basically wasted so if you have good equipment you want to constantly swap it to your currently active corpses.

Our second form of meta progression. Bringing back the blood of your enemies allowed you to invest it in upgrade for future runs. As you progress through the game’s prestige system you will be able to invest in more areas of the table including extending the number of days in your run.

Blood Altar Notes

• Investing in starting equipment and gold can allow you to get some good upgraded equipment right off the bat to smooth out early runs. Invest in gold before Iron.
  
• Flesh is also an important early upgrade choice as you will find yourself running low trying to fill a roster. The max starting Flesh out can carry you through most of a run.
  
• It’s very easy to fill out your initial 10 inventory slots, invest in at least a few more.
  
• Skeletons are better than corpses as any additional starting corpses begin with 90%+ decay.
  
• Herbs are harder to find than hearts and should take priority out of the two, this is also true of pickaxes vs keys but both of these are low priority.
  
• You will almost certainly need additional days to beat higher prestige's.

The Other Stuff

There are also some records that have stats on your overall gameplay and character choices as well as an altar that lets you swap between prestiges once beating the demon. Note that you will have to interact with this altar after each win to move up a level, it won’t automatically do it for you.

Before we jump into combat let’s get a few things out of the way in regards to exploration.

• Some information about each level will be unlocked on the level select screen, to learn any missing information you will need to spend eyeballs. Each “section” of information requires an eyeball to unlock. I.e. one for the enemies, one for the equipment, one for the resources.
  
  
  
• For your first few days prioritise beating up enemies and collecting bones to fill out your roster with corpses you like.
  
  
• Decay is the same regardless of dungeon lengths so areas with more enemies are better for experience/bones.
  
  
• Generally there will be a minimum of 1 chest for every 2 pieces of equipment so bring keys based on this. Even if you don't have a key you will still get the equipment, you may just miss out on extra resources.
  
  
• Pickaxes are used for 3 events, the green crystal throne, the gold crystal throne and the pile of coffins which give soul crystals, gold and flesh/bones respectively. An eyeball will tell you exactly how many to bring.
  
  
• You WILL run out of preservatives if you keep 3 corpses on every run and try to keep them all at low decay, consider bringing 2 corpses or having some roster entries that you do not use preservative on but bring along as back up.
  
  
• Corpses will get no experience if the level of the area is below the level of the corpse. Level ups do not apply until AFTER a level. This means a corpse can go from level 1 to 3 in a level 1 area with enough exp.
  
  
• While you should always aim to complete the run, retreating earlier is preferable to being fully beaten in combat.
  
  
• Don’t bother bringing badly damaged corpses on a run, they get no experience if they aren’t fighting and will just build decay.
  
  
• The actual number of interactables in the game is fairly low and most are self explanatory. The exception is the mystery box. You can put items in on one run and the next time you encounter it they will have turned into something else. I found this underwhelming and never use it but if you are a gambler, go nuts.
  
  
• From Prestige 3 you will get rotten flesh and dimmed soul crystals that can only be made useful by 2 unique interactables. These are ONLY found in the special zone, “Counsellors Hidden Chamber”. This area is also very rich in resources.

Maybe I should have led with this because after an hour or two of Corpse Keeper’s combat you will have either thrown your controller out the window or persevered through it and developed mild Stockholm Syndrome. There is a really weird mix here of a parry based fighter like Sekiro that actually feels pretty good and weighty along with nice animations but the more traditional 2D Fighter layout and limited control options leads to a load of jank and frustrating interactions. Here’s a breakdown of the buttons you need to worry about and their uses.

Attack (X): The basic attack button will make your fighter follow through their 3 preset moves. After each fight win you will be given the option to swap a move out out with a newly earned one. Upgrading the start rating of your attacks is the primary way to increase damage and I would generally recommend upgrading to higher star ratings when possible.

You can get an overview of your current move set in the Ossuary Coffins along with an idea of how quick each move is as well as it’s reach and any other special qualities. You then have a chance at the end of each combo to pull off a special “Inspiration strike” (highlighted by a blue light effect) which usually serves as a 4th, especially damaging attack.



An attack on an enemy that is fully off balance will stun them allowing you to get a free attack in.

• Enemies do not play by the same attacking rules as you. They can cycle through all the different moves available to each corpse.
  
• Sadly there is no practice mode so you better get used to learning your timings and distances on the fly.
  
• You may want to avoid certain move upgrades if your build is focused on just long attacks as an example. Also note that the same move with the same star rating can have slightly different damage.
  
• The off balance stun does wear off quickly, to ensure you land your free attack it’s worth side stepping towards the enemy as soon as you knock them off balance to close distance.
  
• Considering you have no way of controlling your height hitboxes are important here. The Nun for example has an attack with a long, ducked windup and attacks can fly straight over her during this time. Very annoying when you have no real differing attack options.
  
• If both fighter’s attacks connect at the same time it will cause a perfect parry for both parties.

Soul Strike (R1): Every corpse also has a special ability that consumes soul gems to activate. These are usually powerful or have special effects and are mostly unblockable (or the AI does a bad job) however cost resources to use and have a cooldown so you should be using them in a pinch rather than constantly.

• Not all corpses have a soul strike that does damage, some cleanse negative effects or restore balance, make sure you have an understanding of what this button actually does.
  
• You REALLY have to pick your moment because a lot of these attacks have wind ups and can be interrupted by the opponent which will NOT refund your gems or cooldown.
  
• A number of these also inflict statuses which seem fairly neglible although enemy Jailers can make sure your corpse go crazy and uncontrollable.

Parry (L1): You can win most fights with just attacking and parrying. Parrying too early will result in you taking no damage but losing balance, parrying at exactly the right time (shown by the yellow flash) will cause the opponent to take balance damage while also interrupting their attack allowing you to strike back.

• Parry windows are pretty generous for most attacks and can be activated in the middle of most of your animations but you really need to aim for perfect parries of you will eventually be stunned.
  
• “Stabs”, highlighted by a slight slow down and white light effect are very difficult to parry, you need to dodge them. Magic attacks can not be parried.
  
• Where an enemy has multiple weapons or attacks that hit multiple times, EACH part of the attack needs parrying. This sucks as the animation is not always clear when the hit is landing.

Dodge (Y): Pretty much exclusively used to dodge stab attacks. You are able to dodge some other attacks but parrying is generally the better option

• Stab attacks are indicated by a slight slow down and white light effect. Usually the animation can be identified as a stab attack by the thrusting motion but they are often quicker than heavier attacks.
  
  
  
• The enemies' weapon can give you an idea of how likely they are to use stab attacks. Daggers and Lances/generally pointy weapons are more likely to have stab attacks.

Roll (B): More of a repositioning tool compared to a game like Dark Souls, use this to reposition yourself out of a corner rather than using it to dodge any attacks.

Forwardstep/Backstep (A): Just used to make or close a gap. You can use this to back off and let the bone stress meter heal (although I recommend you mostly ignore bone stress).

• Some enemies and especially the Torturer boss appear to have real trouble hitting you if you stick as close to them as possible making side stepping into them consistently a good strategy.
  
• If you are quick some magic can be dodged with a good step. The Ice Mage and Plague Doctor for example can be both dodged by stepping TOWARDS the opponent.

I’m going to say most enemies fall into 4 categories with some overlap between them.

• Standard Fighters (Non Mage Knights, Jailers, Bandits): Attacks tend to feel slower and more telegraphed and come down to winning basic trades. If you are quicker you can often spam attack these guys down with the occasional parry if they get an animation in. Watch for the odd stabs from characters like the poleaxe knight or nun.
  
  
• Stabbers (Mage Knights in particular): Make heavy use of stabbing attacks that you will need to dodge, they tend to be slightly squishier than the heavier fighters and have an annoying tendency to use magic more often.
  
  
• Multi Attackers (Graveyard Keeper, Scout, Assassin): The bane of my life, every attack feels like 3 at once and they are quick with it. These guys will punish you if you just spam interruptible abilities. Some enemies like the Bandit Leader have multi hit axe spin attacks that can land them in this group. Be prepared to hit that parry button multiple times until they recoil. ♥♥♥♥ GRAVEYARD KEEPERS AND ELITE ASSASSINS IN PARTICULAR.
  
  
• “Wild Souls” (Prisoners, Wild Knights): Relentless attackers with mostly uninterruptable attacks, they flip side is they tend to barely block and just eat damage. To make this harder for the player tend to have a lot of attack animations with confusing telegraphs to throw you off but once you get used to this they can be beaten down.

Ironically the Heroes in this title are often easier than some of the generic bad guys, they just have a bit extra health. You will start off only needing to beat the Marshall to fight the demon. Then you will need to be Marshall, Jester and Torturer, to fight the second demon. Finally you will need to beat all 5 for Demon 3+. With a full party of level 3/4 characters with equipment you should breeze through these with minimal losses.

Marshall: Plays like a standard knight fight but just chunkier. Attacks are all telegraphed pretty well and after a little practice you’ll be taking him out easy enough.

Jester: His attacks are more telegraphed than you would think for a creepy clown, the main problem with this fight is his tendency to spam fire magic around himself which has a large radius and is very difficult (if not impossible) sometimes to dodge as well as fireballs at range.

Torturer: Acts as a “Wild Soul” boss, will relentlessly attack with pummels that sometimes have confusing telegraphs. He seems to be pretty incapable of damaging a player who sticks right next to him though (further testing needed to know if only thinner characters can pull this off) making him a pretty easy fight if you keep stepping into him and attacking.

Third Rot Knight: Will add further commentary after fighting this guy a few more times.

Judge: Multi attacker utilising a pair of gauntlets to pummel you. Will add further commentary after fighting this guy a few more times.


Finally it’s boss time. The demon exemplifies most of the problems with this game’s combat, he has relentless multi attacks that mix in jumps and other animation to throw off timings and he requires a huge amount of balance damage to knock him off guard while dishing out balance damage to you. The saving grace is that he doesn’t block all that much so any attacks you do get through will eat away at his health.

Personally I see this fight as more of a stat check than anything else. I’m sure an expert player can beat it with a lower level character but 3 level 3/4 characters with strong equipment that compliments them can dish out damage faster than the demon can deal it. Anyone with slow, interruptible wind ups specifically struggles in this fight as the demon will constantly pin you down. I’m not saying don’t block but if your attack lands I would push it further for more damage.#

On victory remember to interact with the corpse in the background to complete the run.

Struggling who to pick for your team from amongst the roster? Below I will give my recommendations, I'm sure you can make any character work with enough skill but I have found some are just plain busted.


Knight - Poleaxe / Superior Knight - Axe: Both of these boys are rather slow but have shedloads of reach and damage while mixing in stabs. While they can struggle to get hits in against quick multi attackers I have found then pretty effective against most opponents and especially the demon until you unlock some better classes.

Plague Doctor: Maybe part of this is the mask but the Plague doctor is the first character I found to cut through AI opponents like noones business. He's quick, he hurts and he has a number of gap closers that give him a surprising amount of reach.

Ice/Freeze Mage: They might not do as much damage as the above two picks but they are very quick and have a lot of stabs in their kit. The AI seems to parry almost every regular attack but does not deal with stabs as well.

Scout: Just looking at this guy tells you he is a baller. Long reach mixed in with short stabs and some brutal multi hits/inspiration strikes, never unhappy to have a scout on my team.


Prisoner Knight: MY ABSOLUTE GOAT. This mad lad attacks so quick with so much damage that he can spam most opponents to death. My final run consisted of a kitted up Prisoner Knight beating all 5 heroes and the demon by himself. His attack animations throw him all over the screen giving him potential to even dodge magic attacks by simply being in the air. All that and he inflicts Torn with enough hits which causes the AI to take damage even when parrying. What can't he do.

Vagrant Knight: Do you not care about speed? Do you want to break balance meters in about 3 hits while being highly uninterruptable? The Vagrant Knight and his huge sword are here for you. He takes a beating, dishes out even more of one and comes with plenty of rotations and multi attacks to itemise for.

Fire Mage: Even stabbier than his other brethren however seems to pack a surprising amount of damage and has a soulstrike that while expensive, is pretty easy to use for a good chunk of damage. YMMW but I prefer him to his counterparts.

Felony Knight: The bastard child of the Prisoner and Vagrant Knight, surprisingly quick for how huge his hammer is and also filled with rotations and huge damage. I still prefer the prisoner knight because of how well his animations seem to dodge things but the Felony Knight is a solid runner up.

Templar Knight: I have a love hate relationship with this guy. He looks dope and when he ends a multi attack straight into an inspiration strike health bars crumble but compared to some of the other entries here he is a little more standard. He doesn't come back with stabs or huge balance damage so his potential involves a little more player handholding.

This ended up way longer than I thought it would be, hopefully this helps some people make sense of the game and gives a decent reference point. I am happy to add in any additional information/tips from the comments.

If this helped you maybe leave a thumbs up or comment so I don't feel like I wasted a day making this.