The story tracks Joule Adams, one of the first volunteers for the utopian colony of Far Eden, who wakes after centuries in cryo-sleep to find that nothing has gone according to plan.

ReCore received polarised reviews from critics, who commended its innovative genre-combined concept and praised its visuals, atmospheric setting, characterization, audio design, platforming and controls.

Its narrative, looting mechanics, open-world, mission design and combat received more divided opinions; Several critics noted technical issues regarding lengthy and unsuccessful loading screens at launch, prompting Microsoft to release several patches.

This version was met with generally positive reception by critics due to technical fixes, improved loading times, changes to gameplay and additional content.

[1] Joule navigates the open world of Far Eden either on foot equipped with rocket boosters on her shoes and her back, across platforms with the grappling hook or via fast travel.

The game begins on the desert world of Far Eden as one of the colonists Joule Adams (Erika Soto)[10] and her corebot Mack (Jonathan Lipow)[11] are walking past the wreckage of her cryo-sleep maintenance habitat, or "crawler", from which she previously woke.

She finds a lost crawler filled with parietal art indicating that Victor had manipulated the other corebots to attack the maintenance habitats.

Finally, Joule bests Victor in combat and activates the terraforming system, materializing a hologram of her father from parts of memories hidden in the cores.

[21] Mega Man and Metroid influenced the manner in which the robotic characters and world-unlocking were developed, and the cinematic story was impacted by Staten's reading of The Jungle Book.

[31] A free trial version lasting 30 minutes was released the following month[32] in concurrence with an update launched to polish the audio, performance, waypoints, achievement tracking, collision locations, checkpoints and respawn points.

[33] ReCore: Definitive Edition was released on August 29, 2017, adding story content, areas to explore, and gameplay changes and repairs.

In addition to combat abilities being recounted as "pointless and padded", loading times – lasting up to 4 minutes – also met charges of criticism.

Honea concluded that the "first couple of hours of ReCore were almost downright magical" but grew disenchanted with everything but the story, which was seen as its only redeeming quality.

[44] Tamoor Hussain of GameSpot called it a modest action game whose length suffered a condition of insecurity, yet added that most of its ventures were carried out successfully.

[46] Arthur Gies of Polygon took the view that, however strong a first impression the fundamentals and ideas yielded, the game's overall quality was reduced by being drawn out beyond its capabilities with superfluous material.

Further, Polygon disparaged the design for the game's considerable length, and sensed it was to compensate for the small number of story missions.

Williams wrote that the corebots were one of ReCore's strongest aspects and judged exploration to be the most robust feature, but found that the story was obstructed by the level-based progression.

[51] The release of the Definitive Edition update was met with a more positive reception due to technical fixes, improved loading times, changes to gameplay and additional content.

"[57] Prior to its announcement at E3, Inafune and Pacini already had discussed and planned a concept for a sequel, stating that the game would open up a 'bigger picture' to explore in future iterations.

[59] Microsoft initially hoped explore ReCore traditions to tell new stories in the universe and its unique idea would lead to a successful property that bring back players interest in the action-adventure merged platform games, possibly spawning a new revival of the genre.

[60][61][62] Some ideas by Staten included expand the narrative and myths behind the world of Far Eden and explore a way to push the boundaries of what's possible in cinematic storytelling and gameplay mechanics who puts ReCore's lore in the same vein as his past works in the Halo and Destiny franchises.

[62][63] He also addressed that his team at Microsoft Studios Publishing planned to make sequels if the first game succeed and players were interested enough.

[63] Alongside Quantum Break, ReCore was referred internally as a "risked groundbreaking idea" by Microsoft, and an attempt in the keep-pursuing desire of building a big, brand new franchise.

[66] On June 23, 2018, Armature Studio confirmed to be working on two new original projects, answering a e-mail fan question about ReCore 2.

On February 21, 2023, after nearly five years inactive, the official Instagram page of the game was updated with a new post, sharing an image and quote "Anyone know what I'm up to with this cryptic code?".