Dome Keeper: The Lost Keepers

1. Summary

The Lost Keepers is a character pack: two new keepers (the cat-summoning Beastmaster and the grappling, kunai-throwing Infiltrator), plus new guild assignments, cosmetics and two soundtrack volumes. Most reviewers like it, and nearly all of the praise is about the keepers. Both play very differently from the Engineer and Assessor. The Beastmaster sends cat goblins out of tunnels to haul and mine for you, and players who liked her describe a relaxed, Pikmin-like style. The Infiltrator turns mining into a platformer with wall jumps, a grappling rope and thrown kunai. Several long-time fans said the pack fixed the base game's thin keeper roster and gave them a reason to come back.

Opinion splits over the Infiltrator. More reviews praise him than criticize him, and a few call him the most fun keeper in the game once his movement clicks. His critics find him clunky, underpowered or close to unplayable, especially on a controller, where reviewers say twin-stick aiming was off by default. Much of the frustration is technical: crashes and save bugs around launch (some reported fixed by early patches such as 5.0.1), and frame drops and stutter with the Beastmaster once her tunnels and cat goblins multiply, which reviewers were still reporting weeks after launch. A small number of reviews argue about price, some calling the pack good value and others saying the keepers "should have been a free update".

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Two new keepers that change how a run playsHigh

Reviewers who like the pack mostly talk about the two keepers as new ways to play. 21% of reviews praise the pair together, separate from those that single out one of them. Players put them at opposite ends of the difficulty range: "Beastmaster is great if you want to have no braincells, while infiltrator is great if you want ALL the braincells." Some long-time fans had grown tired of the original two keepers. One wrote that the DLC "takes the weakest part of the game and makes it one of the strongest", and others said the pack doubled a roster that had felt too small. A couple of newer players bought Dome Keeper because of this DLC and started on these keepers. The few dissenters called the keepers boring or felt the pack added too little beyond them.

The Beastmaster and her cat goblinsHigh

You dig a tunnel and cat goblins swarm out of it to carry resources home, which removes most of the back-and-forth hauling. 27% of reviews praise her for it: "If you ever wondered what it would be like putting Pikmin into Dome Keeper this is pretty close." Some build around her minions with gadgets like Drillbert or the iron worms, and a few called her the easier of the two new keepers and a good one for newcomers.

Complaints about her are about power and pace. A smaller group (9% of reviews) found her slow to move and dig, weak in solo play, or unclear to upgrade ("I have no clue how to make use of the upgrades for them."). One player said she is only worth picking in co-op with three or more people. Her lag problems are covered under frustrations below.

Co-op launched alongside, and keepers shared from the hostMedium

15% of reviews mention multiplayer, mostly to thank the developers for the free co-op and split-screen update that came out with the DLC, and a couple of people said they bought the pack mainly to support the developers for it. For the DLC itself, players liked that "if your friend doesnt have it while in your lobby they can still play as your keepers". Sharing only works from the host's side, though. One negative review asks the developers to "please let me use the characters I've paid for in a multiplayer game without hosting", because friends who are still unlocking things want to host. Others reported the new keepers' resource-carrying styles interfering with each other in co-op, plus sync bugs and Beastmaster lag in multiplayer.

The new soundtracksLow

9% of reviews mention the music, mostly to praise it: "The OSTs for the two new characters are incredible too, some of the best music in the game." Two of them single out the Beastmaster's tracks. Two reviewers asked why the new volumes only came as MP3 and didn't show up in their Steam library; later reviews say FLAC and WAV files were added, and one reviewer switched to a recommendation because of it. A couple of players felt the new music didn't match the original soundtrack.

New guild assignments and cosmeticsLow

8% of reviews mention the new assignments, mostly as a pleasant extra ("fun", "pretty interesting"), with one player saying they add variety but aren't revolutionary. A couple also mention new skins and pets.

Where players are split

The Infiltrator: best keeper in the game or a clunky messHigh

More reviews talk about the Infiltrator than about anything else in the pack: 46% mention him one way or the other, and 27% praise him. Fans describe a "high speed metroidvania" style built on double jumps, wall jumps, a reusable grappling rope and exploding kunai, and say he has the highest skill ceiling of any keeper. A few who struggled at first said he became their favourite after practice. Some pushed back on the criticism directly: "Infiltrator is so good, I don't understand all the hate."

19% of reviews criticize him, with specific complaints: he falls instead of flying, so getting back to the dome from deep in the mine is slow; his carrying capacity is small; kunai bounce off surfaces at shallow angles; and the rope's range is hard to judge. "The movement feels extremely clunky." Others simply found him too hard and stuck with the Beastmaster. Players who like him and players who don't both say he is easier to aim with a mouse, which leads into the controller complaints below.

Is it worth the price?Medium

Pricing comes up in a small share of reviews, split both ways. 9% say the pack is good value, often because two keepers double the roster ("$8 is a reasonable price for how much content the DLC adds"). 7% object to the price: some feel new keepers "should have been a free update" in a base game they see as light on content, some said to wait for a sale, and some wanted a new dome or another bigger addition alongside the keepers. A few fans said they bought it mainly to support the developers.

What frustrates players

Crashes, broken saves and other bugsHigh

20% of reviews report bugs. The serious ones: the game crashing when the Beastmaster mines or summons cat goblins, the Infiltrator's kunai not firing, crashes on quitting (one player reported a blue screen), and saves failing to load after quitting while the Infiltrator carried resources ("when u carry something with infiltrator and exit, your save is wasted."). Controller bindings that didn't work for one keeper's abilities made local co-op unplayable for some. Most of these reports came in the first two weeks, and at least one reviewer changed their vote after a fix: "I updated it to positive after patch 5.0.1 fixed most of my complaints." Bug reports kept arriving afterwards, including an Infiltrator crash while mining with kunai in July and an October report that he sometimes won't shoot. Two players also said the update broke their mods, and one said it removed profiles.

Beastmaster lag and stutterMedium

Frame drops, stutter and one-second freezes with the Beastmaster come up in 9% of reviews, and they get worse as the run goes on and more tunnels are working. One player traced it to "the beast tunnels, the more you have and the more being processed, the more laggy it is", and another blamed cat-goblin pathfinding. It shows up on PC and Steam Deck and in co-op. For one player who turns screen shake off, the stutter after the faster movement upgrades was "game breaking". These reports ran from launch week into June.

The Infiltrator on a controllerMedium

16% of reviews raise controller or aiming problems, mostly about the Infiltrator. Reviewers describe a launch setup where aim and movement shared one stick, jump sat on the right trigger, and twin-stick aiming had to be found in the settings: "you MUST enable twin stick controls on a gamepad for the infiltrator in the settings". Several players were happy once they found it, and some reviews are just tips telling others to turn it on. Others still found the grapple hard to aim precisely with a stick or called the control scheme strange. One player who plays the base game keyboard-only disliked that the Infiltrator needs a mouse or controller, and another was angry about a controller-only nerf.

3. The player conversation

The tone is warm and fan-driven. Several reviewers call themselves long-time Dome Keeper players, thank the developers or say they bought the pack to support them, and judge it as an addition to a game they already love. The negative reviews (21%) are mostly about things breaking: about seven in ten of them mention a bug, a crash or Beastmaster lag, and most of the rest complain about the Infiltrator's controls. Only a few negatives object to the price, and almost none dislike the keeper concepts themselves. A couple of negatives say outright that they will change their review once fixes land.

Mouse players and people willing to practise the Infiltrator's movement love him, while controller players and those who tried a run or two found him awkward, and fans of each side argue with each other in their reviews. Co-op groups raise their own set of issues: shared keepers, guest access to owned DLC, and keepers interfering with each other's resources.

72% of reviews (97) came in the first two weeks after launch, when 82% were positive and at least one early negative turned positive after the first patches. The 38 reviews written after that were 71% positive, a smaller sample in which Beastmaster lag, leftover Infiltrator bugs and price come up more often than in launch week.

4. What the developers could do

1. Close out the remaining crashes and save bugs. Crashes when mining with either keeper, crashes on exit and saves lost after quitting while the Infiltrator carried resources make up the core of the bug reports.
2. Fix the Beastmaster's late-run lag. Players report frame drops and stutter that grow with the number of tunnels and cat goblins, on PC, Steam Deck and in co-op, well after launch.
3. Make the Infiltrator's controller setup sensible by default. Twin-stick aiming off by default and jump on the right trigger confused controller players, and reviews keep telling each other to change the setting.
4. Smooth the Infiltrator's weak spots. Critics point to the slow trip back to the dome, the small carry capacity, kunai bouncing at shallow angles and an unpredictable rope range, while fans want his speed kept.
5. Let guests use DLC keepers they own. A negative review asks to play paid keepers in a friend's hosted game, so new players can keep their unlocks.
6. Explain and tune the Beastmaster's upgrade paths. Players found some branches unclear or pointless and called her slow or weak in solo play.
7. Test the new keepers together in co-op. Their different resource-carrying styles interfered with each other and with multiplayer sync, according to co-op players.