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Enshrouded is a fantastical spin on Valheim with some dazzling new ideas

9K View2023-10-07

Enshrouded

9.8

SandboxAction RPGSurvivalActionCraftingRPGOnline Co-OpPvE

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SHOULD I PLAY ENSHROUDED?

Definitely check this one out during next week’s Steam Next Fest if you enjoy survival crafting games, especially Valheim. In Enshrouded, you’ll be doing many familiar activities from that type of game: gathering materials, building a base, exploring a big handcrafted world, and defeating monsters. However, Enshrouded adds some exciting new twists to the formula, and it has an awe-inspiring scale that reminded me of my first trip up to High Hrothgar in Skyrim.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played four hours of the Enshrouded demo, which is limited by time (you get eight hours) and the incomplete state of the current build. While Enshrouded hasn’t yet entered early access, there’s already loads to do. I split my time between gradually building up a base using the versatile construction system and exploring the vast world. The landscape alternates between sun-dappled vistas and dark, murky areas blanketed with a toxic “Shroud,” which produces huge fungal structures and twisted monstrosities. I leveled my character up a few times, although the skill tree is not currently complete. I also crafted a few key pieces of gear that made it easier for me to traverse difficult areas, like a grappling suit and squirrel suit-style hang glider.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT ENSHROUDED?

• A beautiful, destructible world. Enshrouded has a huge and beautiful map, and I was amazed that I could then go around blowing holes in it at will. I could dig holes and raise the landscape however I wanted in my base, where the stone walls I put up looked impressively natural. Each strike of my mining pick chipped some of the terrain away, almost the way mining works in No Man’s Sky, although it felt smoother to me in Enshrouded.

The high mountains, mist-shrouded valleys, and deep dungeons had a remarkable amount of verticality to them, so I never felt like the world was dull in the way that the procedurally generated maps often are in Valheim or No Man’s Sky. Enshrouded’s world is fantastical and dramatic, which made exploring a lot more fun than it usually is in these games.

• The Shroud is scary. It’s not that the Shroud, which hangs near the ground in cursed valleys and fills up dark caves, is a complex mechanic or anything. It’s effective, though! Whenever I walked into the mists of a Shroud-covered area, the whole feel of the game changed—it was a bit like hearing my Geiger counter go off in STALKER. I could occasionally glimpse the sun peeking through the fog to light up the upper stories of a tall tower or a mountainside, but every step I took through the Shroud felt like being surrounded by evil. It doesn’t help that everything was covered in giant mushrooms and fungus. These areas are spooky and dangerous, almost like the shimmery alien zone from Annihilation.

• A versatile construction system. If you’re into the base-building side of survival games, Enshrouded has you covered (although not in poison fog this time, I promise). I found many of the familiar components present and correct: foundations, walls, doorframes, stairways, walls, roofing sections, and so on. What impressed me, though, was how smoothly they all clicked together once I had put them in place. My structures always came out looking very natural thanks to the excellent texture work and dynamic lighting.

• No grind. I appreciated that Enshrouded let me get right to the fun stuff with very little preamble. Sure, there were resources to collect and errands to run, but I never felt like it was wasting my time. Most of the stuff I needed was right at hand and plentiful, so I didn’t run into any situations where I had to scour for an hour to find the item I needed. A good example of this was when I was building my base. I used stone for most of the construction, and each piece I placed required a certain amount of stone blocks, which I produced at my workbench. Each time I processed raw stone, I got one hundred blocks to use...and if I still needed more, I could just dig into the terrain and get some.

• It’ll be free to try out next week. That’s right, Enshrouded will be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest, which runs October 9-17. Keen Games says there’s a major patch rolling out at the start of the event, which will add some quality of life improvements, overall polish, bug fixes, and more. Getting eight free hours to check out a game before deciding to buy is a huge plus, so definitely give this one a look during the Steam Next Fest if you’re a survival fan.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN ENSHROUDED?

• Simplistic combat. I didn’t enjoy the fighting in Enshrouded, despite the cool enemy designs and spooky Shroud concept. There just wasn’t much to it: I’d lock onto an enemy, circle around so their attacks missed, then go in for a combo strike and dodge back out of range. I could also parry with the left bumper, and the window on that seemed incredibly generous. Higher-level enemies were tougher, but only thanks to huge damage output and large HP pools—they fought exactly the same way as their low-level counterparts.

• Tiny inventory space. My backpack was constantly filling up with stone, wood, various mushrooms and other fungi, and whatever else I found in my travels. That more or less forced me to return to my base more often than I wanted to just to drop stuff off. Once I had some containers set up back there it was less of a problem, but getting to the bottom of a scary dungeon and then not having room to pick up any loot was always a bummer.

• Early access issues. As a preview for a game that is not yet in early access, Enshrouded feels remarkably fully featured, but there’s definitely room for it to grow. The skill tree is unfinished, as I mentioned earlier, and the demo threw up a bright red wall when I had traveled far enough from base—despite showing me a fascinating-looking black stone castle just over the next hill. I’ll just have to wait for the early access launch along with everyone else.

💬 Will you be setting off with your friends in Enshrouded, or do you already have a favorite survival-crafting adventure game? Let me know in the comments!