Enshrouded has been in Early Access since the beginning of 2024 and has had a myriad of updates since, including its most recent large scale update in May: The Thralls of Twilight. The mega update added new areas, mechanics and much more into an already massive world.
I haven’t had the opportunity to play Enshrouded until now but I have to say it really has one of those Breath of The Wild moments right at the very beginning while looking out into a beautiful new world that seems to expand into the hills with towers, mountains and what appears to be a floating ruin in the distance. Vast, overwhelming scale is something rarely achieved so well.
Considering how enormous the world is I was not expecting it to look as good as it does, with great detail woven into every environment both in and out of The Shroud; Complete with dense ruins and homesteads to dingy depths and mystical caverns. Enshrouded hits its mark in nearly every locale I have come across so far.
Speaking of the shroud, Enshrouded has environments that are covered with thick fog known as the shroud — which, narratively, was spewn out of an ancient location long ago and has slowly taken over parts of the world. This deadly fog ‘shrouds’ dangerous areas with tight time limits, that require more and more protection and preparation the deeper you go.
Some of the more dangerous areas of the shroud have a more potent version of the cursed fog which can simply turn your timer in the shroud to a matter of seconds. If you take a wrong turn and fall into one then it is certain death if you cannot react quickly. I personally played with the Dark Souls-style recovery mechanics switched off, just to avoid what I imagine to be some frustrating encounters with these areas.
These densely shrouded areas also seem to house some of the more coveted items, especially in the early game, that allow you to upgrade, build and create new pieces of equipment and buildings to assist you in your journey. Some of these upgrades specifically focus on traversal, with things like grappling hooks and gliders becoming available quite early on in the game leaving the choice of where to explore entirely in your hands.
One thing I have noticed when getting the glider, for instance, is just how easy it is to get around some of the world, in some of the more hill-based areas you can just jump from a great height and land at the top of some of the towers immediately granting rewards that would have been intended later down the line. It’s not the end of the world but it can trivialise some of the more in-depth exploration you would otherwise have if this was a late game item.
When building your first base I thought it would be a great idea to set up in what seemed to be an already half built set of ruins but realised very quickly that it doesn’t leave you with a lot of room to build, meaning you either commit to existing mostly destroyed structures or kind of patchwork them with materials available to you. I seemed to have made a mix of both with some freestanding structures and ruins which works great but you can basically set up one of your bases anywhere.
I do say ‘one’ of your bases because Enshrouded will expect you to set up a few as they work as respawn points as well as fast travel points, so as you earn more of the materials to create new bases it is highly encouraged that you set up little camps in safe areas outside of the shroud to help navigate the terrain better.
The base building is very simple but has a great selection of options allowing you to customise materials, sizes of structures as well as taking existing cells of buildings and only using say half of the size of a wall to help create the perfect sized homes and hovels. The world can also be terraformed with stone, wood, dirt all being manipulated to create hills and holes wherever your inner dwarf may desire to build them.
The story of Enshrouded does have you following a path to unlock more characters and villagers that can inhabit your created structures with the first one I’ve met being a blacksmith. This is actually really nice, with these new characters bringing knowledge of new items to craft and structures to help you improve your existing towns.
Another part of Enshrouded’s world is its large array of puzzles and challenges that include hidden doors in ruined towers filled with parkour and switch based puzzles and much more. A lot of these haven’t really posed any issue to me, but so far they have all been quite enjoyable rather than the repetitive slogs you can sometimes find in similar games.
Enshrouded also features up to 16 player servers with dedicated and private servers available to you as and when needed. Most of my experience has been solo, but can clearly see how this would appeal to a group of friends looking to sink some hours into something together.
Overall, my time with Enshrouded has been quite pleasant with a beautiful world, deadly environments, plenty of freedom leaving much more for me to explore.
Enshrouded is available now, for PC.
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