Enshrouded by Keen Games

As the last of the ancient Flameborn race, you must “survive, fight, build, and upgrade your formidable hero” in order to uncover secrets of the realm’s downfall and reclaim its lost beauty.

This co-op multiplayer game for up to 16 players fuses open-world exploration, crafting, and action combat within voxel biomes powered by a proprietary engine developed by Keen Games.

Join a Crowd to Fight the Shroud

Your ancestors’ magical greed unleashed the “Shroud” – a pestilence warping the land itself. Now beasts and factions ravage the ruins.

Fortunately, your hero boasts impressive parkour mobility to traverse forests, caves, and dungeons while battling enemies. Duck, parry, and surprise foes with skills from an in-depth tree. Build the strength to push back the Shroud’s incursion.

The custom voxel engine enables you to construct grand halls or customized bases with various materials and decor. Local NPCs may even take residence, unlocking workshops and legendary gear-crafting.

Band together with allies online to carve out roles, gather treasure, and overcome formidable bosses. A fallen realm hiding vibrant cultures and redemption awaits exploration.

So…what is Enshrouded exactly after over 20 hours of playtime?

To be honest, I don’t really know yet. If we go by the Steam store page, “Enshrouded is a game of survival, crafting, and Action RPG combat, set within a sprawling voxel-based continent.”

Now two of those three things, I fully believe, but I’ve yet to really come across the “Survival” part. Unlike some other survival games I have played, there isn’t much surviving required.

Start the Game, Born of Flame

You start by creating your character (cosmetic only) and awakening in the world of Embervale with nothing.

There isn’t a real tutorial, but there are tutorial elements within the game. When you come across certain things, Enshrouded explains elements of the mechanics, but these can be easily missed if you’re not paying attention.

The first thing you must do is craft a flame altar. This claims land and gives you an area to build within. Crafting and base-building is very easy and simple. The only downside to building is that a right mouse click removes pieces, and out of habit, I dismantled several spaces just by accident from clicking the mouse.

As you progress, you can upgrade altars across the map, which are useful for fast travel and also resetting your skill points. There are 12 classes you can spec into. Want to be a tank? You can. Want to be a Battlemage? You can. This way it accommodates different styles, even for people new to these games. If gear doesn’t match your build, you can easily re-spec to use it optimally.

Finding quests is very simple; Enshrouded marks them on your map, and off you go.

Sharing, Caring, and Wide-Eyed Staring

Storage can be an issue in survival games, especially when trying to remember which box contains what ingredients when trying to craft an item. Enshrouded deserves special mention for how well it handles this: you can craft normal chests or magic chests, and all items in a magic chest can be used/pulled for crafting within the area you’re in.

One of the best things with Enshrouded, especially in co-op, is the ease of sharing items, which can be a real pain in survival games, what with dropping things and trying to find them.

This is not the case here: You can gift items to a friend within range: half or all of a stack. One quirk: sometimes only one person gets quest rewards or credit. I’d like to see this fixed in future updates (and the devs are already working on it).

Immerser

Visually, this game is stunning: From rolling green hills to luminescent blue to the red in the deadly Shroud, I can’t speak highly enough of the graphics.

One thing which I really enjoyed is that – because you play as a “Flameborn” – certain lanterns light up along the path as you walk towards them. Playing co-op with a friend hosting, I have no connection or lag issues. The game runs smoothly with no game-breaking problems so far.

The visuals pair nicely with a calm, relaxing soundtrack. In-game sounds meet expectations: metal on metal, chopping wood, clinking metal boots.

Verdict

For an Early Access game, Enshrouded shows remarkable polish without crashes or major bugs so far. Comparisons to Valheim seem common, but I would liken it more to Grounded for voxel graphics and overall gameplay.

I’m thoroughly enjoying the chilled yet engaging world. The fusion of survival, RPG progression, and custom building provides an immersive experience worth exploring further at your own pace.

Enshrouded is available in Early Access via Steam.

Check out the official Enshrouded release trailer: