Review: Enshrouded

Genre / Tags: Open World, Survival, Multiplayer, Action, Adventure, RPG, Early Access
Developer/Publisher: Keen Games GmbH/Keen Games GmbH
URL: Enshrouded on Steam

Enshrouded has been on my radar for the last couple years now. But I haven’t really had a chance to really start to delve into the game until nearly late 2022. Since then i’ve put nearly 100 or so hours into the game. With all the new content that’s been added over the last couple years I feel like i’ve barely scratched the surface of what there is still to do in the game. Let alone the fact that Enshrouded is still in Early Access, so new updates and content are being added to the game all the time.

I’m a big survival game enjoyer, from Minecraft to Valheim. I’ve tried a lot of them over the last few years. Really only a few of them stand out and break out of the “mold” of your basic survival game. Like for example, with Minecraft there’s so many different ways you can play the game. You can build structures, make machines, explore and adventure, etc etc. Where games like Valheim is all about exploring and adventuring, and has some unique building aspects to it.

(Image Credit: Enshrouded)

Enshrouded on the other hand, takes a bit from both of the examples I’ve talked about. Takes the voxel-ness and freeform building aspects from Minecraft, but also being able to build homes out of the housing building blocks provided. You can carve from the world itself with your pickaxe into the voxels itself, but the buildings are all block / square based. It takes little messing around to get used to. The more I build the more I find it’s one of the best building survival games I’ve played thus far.

I feel like really where Enshrouded shines is you can take singular blocks out of say a wood doorframe, and replace it with blocks of a completely different block type like cobblestone or what have you. Making it incredible to be able to make as custom of homes as you want to. Which is something i’ve really spent a lot of time doing this time around with the game, playing with a couple friends off and on over the last few weeks.

(Image Credit: Enshrouded)

Being in Early Access, Enshrouded definitely still has it’s buggy-ness, from weird crashes and disconnects, to monsters just bugging out when you fight them. They don’t happen too often however in my experience, but often enough to make note of.

That aside there’s TONS of stuff to do in Enshrouded. Outside of just building and adventuring through the different areas of the game. There’s lots of different monsters to fight, from beasts to shroud monsters. As well as bosses that you need to take out to progress your base and level the base ‘Flame Core’. This allows you to gain access to harder areas of the game and deeper levels of the shroud. Much like Valheim where your progress is tied behind taking out bosses and gaining specific things from them needed to make new machines or gain access to places.

Like I said, I’ve probably put nearly 100 hours into Enshrouded and i’ve barely made it to the third area. I’m not anywhere close to the latest content that the developers have added at the beginning of November with the Souls of the Frozen Frontier update. I’m excited to get there but i’m still a ways away.

That being said, i’d easily give Enshrouded a 8.9/10, it’s a great building and adventuring survival game. Probably one of the best of the handful i’ve played. With it being in Early Access and the development team constantly working on improving the game with all these free content updates as well the game is only going to get better and better.

Check out the trailer below. The latest Souls of the Frozen Frontier update for Enshrouded released on November 3rd 2024. Obviously there’s probably some spoilers it it, so if you’re new to the game, be warned! Exciting stuff I can’t wait to check out myself!

FGM –