Enshrouded is a fantastical survival action RPG set in the dying realm of Embervale. Read our first impressions review of its 1.0 release to see what it did well, what it didn’t, and whether it’s worth trying.
Enshrouded 1.0 Review [First Impressions]
Ah, Enshrouded. I remember when this game was just an Early Access title trying to tough it out in the pits of Steam’s new arrivals list. Thriving might be a more accurate descriptor of this game’s initial spotlight, though, since it impressed everyone from the get-go and has received consistent support and updates over the past two years through sheer presence and quality.
Having reviewed the game's early-access build and given it high marks in its unfinished state, I was practically giddy to give the game a go now that it’s in its 1.0 build—presumably its final form, barring minor balance and patch updates. Fresh from my stint at Valheim and carrying Palworld’s whimsy in my stride still, indeed, there was no better time to dive back in and see what’s become of Embervale.
Not to overstate my very limited initial playthrough of its 1.0 build, but the game has only gotten better since its Early Access days. Things have gotten smoother, ideas have been fleshed out, and, finally, the game can carry players past its troubled mid-game.
Surviving the Ashes of A Once-Great Kingdom
Let’s start things off with the game’s story. The narrative itself hasn’t changed; Enshrouded still takes place in the ruins of the once-great kingdom of Embervale. Following its destruction at the hands of a mysterious substance called "Elixir" and its subsequent resource rush, Embervale was soon plunged into the grasp of an encroaching magical fog called the Shroud.
With citizens turning into shroud-infused monsters and a shroom-like blight spreading wherever the Shroud spreads, Embervale was lost. The player, a special breed of creature called a Flameborn, is the only person who can brave the Shroud in the aftermath, but first they must survive Embervale’s wilderness.
Pretty much the same as before, at least up until the point I reached in the early access. I gave it praise then; I’ll do so again now. Building lore around the past is easy, but building it around the present while maintaining a notable presence is much harder, but Enshrouded managed.
The 1.0 release brought with it snazzy new opening sequences to round out what the EA build started, and, to keep the momentum going as players discover points of interest on the map, voice-over readings of lore points have also been introduced.
With all that exposition, one may think that the game peaked in its storytelling that way, but the environmental storytelling is also on-point—even if you could theoretically destroy it all with a pickaxe. The spires reaching out of the Shroud’s canopy serve as notable dungeons and major progression points, and within them, players can find the game’s most intricate designs for both visual and storytelling points.
I’ve not reached the end yet, not even close, but I can tell players are going to be in for a ride.
Turning The Gameplay Loop On Its Head Through the Shroud
Moving on to the gameplay now, Enshrouded’s EA gameplay hasn’t changed much apart from some much-needed optimization and refinements. That’s a good thing, of course, because one of Enshrouded’s most obvious draws from its EA build is the duality of its survival gameplay.
On the one hand, players may experience the voxel-based building, handcrafting, and RPG combat they could expect from a game like this. On the other, they have the Shroud. Both are unique, even when not being compared to one another, so let’s go over what makes them tick.
Enshrouded’s non-shroud gameplay, which covers a good 70% of its runtime, is a mix of standard-fare survival RPG mechanics and genuinely cool new ideas. Players can look forward to some base-building, some combat, resource-gathering; the works. They can, however, also make use of a world that’s completely destructible—more on that later—a building system that uses materials and prefabs interchangeably as formulas, and a much more expansive class system than it has any business having.
Once players muster the courage to brave the Shroud, the other side of the game’s proverbial coin takes center stage as their lifebars turn into timers. The Shroud cannot be traversed for long, even by Flameborn, and if the player’s clock runs out, it’s instant death regardless of their stats. This is made a lot more difficult by the fact that the Shroud is almost always in low-lying, labyrinthine areas, so getting out may not be as easy as getting in.
This balance between casual survival and hardcore storm survival, like a late-game PUBG sesh, is what makes Enshrouded worthwhile. Things never go stale because there’s always a whole other world—almost a whole other game—waiting for players in certain parts of the map, and if even that gets boring, there are dungeons in both to get lost in.
I consider this to be the game’s biggest strength under no uncertain terms. If anything else about the game changed, its quality wouldn’t take as much of a hit as it would if the Shroud was removed. In multiplayer, the Shroud makes players—explorers, fighters, and base-stewards, all—equal under its time limit. This in itself is actually valuable, considering the vastness of its possible server size (a maximum of 16), meaning nobody would ever feel less important or less helpful in the Shroud.
A stroke of genius by the game’s devs? Perhaps, but not their only one. It’s time we talked about the game’s building system, because, as a base-steward myself, I don’t even need to get in the Shroud to lose myself in this game’s mechanics.
Detailed Base-building to Go With A Fully-Destructible World
Base-building is a must-have for survival games. Something about carving out an abode in the wilderness gives players the power trip they need to stay engaged. While simple prefabs like what Pax Dei or Runescape: DragonWilds did would’ve sufficed, Enshrouded was not happy to rest on its laurels.
Building in this game is a matter of two things: materials and shape. Materials determine what something is made of, and shape determines what that something is. Players can mix and match those at will in this game’s voxel/prefab-building system, allowing them to make some of the most detailed and unlikely bases I’ve ever seen.
Not as strict (or as buggy) as Sons of the Forest’s, these buildings tend to be on the blockier side, sure, but they sure as heck have a better palette than most any survival game I’ve seen.
Sadly, it’s all cosmetic. Yep, unlike Valheim’s focus on building materials being accurately load-bearing, every 4-meter block, gateway, stairwell, and windowed wall in Enshrouded, regardless of material, be it stone, lumber, or shroudwood, has the same HP and durability.
This game’s rather boring in that way, but considering that it was designed to be a cooperative experience pushing players towards the Shroud as their main opposing force, and enemy base attacks aren’t really a thing like they are in V Rising, this is acceptable. I’d have loved to have some function to the aesthetic variety as well, but that’s more a preference than a necessity.
If players really need some destruction to be sated, however, the world’s their highly destructible oyster. Everything, from the ground, to the walls of pre-generated structures, to the literal terrain, can be mined for resources, exploded, and removed with tools. So if the base is getting boring, players can just dig a really big hole through a mountain.
Built for High Spec Co-op, For Better or Worse
On the topic of multiplayer, the game had a pitfall regarding its multiplayer implementation that didn’t make itself known until it was too late into a save. The Hollow Halls endgame dungeons are solo-compatible, but not solo-friendly in that the difficulty was borderline unbeatable.
That has since been fixed by the devs in 1.0, though indirectly. Difficulty sliders now exist to keep things manageable, and they’re tweakable at any point through the settings menu. There still remains the issue of what "high-spec multiplayer" refers to, and it's not about endgame specs.
I mean computer specs, because until now, this game will take a decently kitted-out setup to run. If players manage to play it on PS5 as I did, this is hardly an issue. On PC, though, anything less than upper-median will turn the game into a stuttering mess, or worse, a polygonal nightmare.
I didn’t think 1.0 would improve this too much. That’s just what the game demands to be what it is. Lower accessibility aside, the fact that it can give much more in return in terms of visuals and content—something a survival game shouldn’t have too much trouble with in the first place—means it is still worth praise.
Even In the Fog of the Shroud, A Great Game Is Visible
I’ve only managed to scratch the surface of what this game has to offer, and I’m already in awe at its scale, ingenuity, and progress from its EA build. Since the honeymoon period of my initial review is long finished, some vestiges of the Shroud’s corruption are starting to seep in—the cosmetic quality of base-building and high-spec requirements being among them.
Still, I find many things to give this game praise about, such that its outline, though lightly obscured, is still visible within the Shroud’s embrace.
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