**Note: This is an ongoing review as the game is in early access. This review so far only pertains to the solo experience of Enshrouded with a multiplayer review to come.
Enshrouded is a new entry in the co-op survival genre and well worth picking up in early access if you are a fan of the category. Like many of its companions, you awake in a world with little knowledge of how or why you got here, and there is a sudden and very real urgency to build a rudimentary base, weapons, armour and tools to survive and figure out what’s going on.
In Enshrouded, however, you were purposely chosen and put here by your ancestors and essentially baked for a very long time to be reborn as a Flameborn to battle the darkness that has taken over the land. This part of the story is what Enshrouded adds to the genre. Your ancestors’ civilization has been wiped out by a Shroud of fog that mutates everything within into something akin to the Upside-down in Strange Things. There is a mechanic to this, and you can only spend a limited time in the Shroud before you die. The further you get into the game, the more difficult this becomes, and you have to gear up appropriately to get in, get what you need and get out before the darkness overtakes you.
This may sound like a bad note to start the review with but in this case it is actually a wonderful thing. Enshrouded combines all the best pointers from games like Valheim, ARK, and Palworld into a very entertaining survival experience. While it doesn’t necessarily have any game changing new key elements, it polishes the experience into something truly awesome and it’s only in early access.
Take Valheim, likely Enshrouded’s closest comparable survival game, for example. I truly loved the Viking inspired co-op survival force, but after playing Enshrouded I’m not sure how easy it will be to go back to Valheim. Valheim was very limited in it’s exploration. Each procedurally generated biome was appropriately dark and fitting but you run through it to find the resources you need to collect and the enemies you need to farm and collect to unlock the next boss you need to kill.
Exploration in Enshrouded is much more akin to Skyrim in that the world is purposefully designed and a beauty to explore. The environments are widely varied and pleasing to investigate, but your curiosity will also be rewarded. The wreckage of the old world contains both stories to give life to the overarching narrative and loot to better your character and base, and it is almost always worth finding out what is hidden in some unexplored nook you come across.
The means of exploration takes some great styles from games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Palworld, though the latter was probably coincidence since the arrived in early-access about the same time. Still, if you have played Palworld, the grappling hooks and gliders will be both familiar and entertaining, and the vistas you will get to view with these tools will be well worth the effort. Speaking of effort, though, one of my only gripes with the game and something I hope they nerf a bit in the final build is fall damage. Â
I understand that when you grapple up steep structures and glide of incredibly high cliffs, falling is a danger that must be contended with, but I’ve fallen of the edge of hills that I’m sure a child could roll down in RL and not have much more than a skinned knee. This is exasperated when the fatal mole hill is at the base of a some huge chasm that genuinely took some time and effort to descend and now you have to go back for your dropped gear. Still it’s easily fixable and well worth the extra trips to see the beautiful world.
Nothing game changing in the combat department here but it is very well done none-the-less. Again, Valheim is probably the closest comparable in the survival genre, with the three main style choices: melee, archery, and magic. Right now, wands seem like they have a real advantage with the ranged benefits of archery but the ability to spam multi-hits like melee. Perhaps this changes in the late game but for now I found it way overpowered compared to the latter two choices. Enshrouded adds a nice action component of mandatory dodging and rolling, moving it closer to Dark Souls combat but not nearly as gruelling. Â
Base building and gear crafting is also fairly stock. Still, it adds an NPC component where you can summon characters to permanently inhabit your base, acting like extensions to the crafting stations. The center piece to your base is the Flame Alter which you will also need to upgrade by killing bosses and gathering supplies to unlock further tiers to your base and your own abilities.
SPOILER ALERT: Games like Coral Island, Fae Farm and Palworld have thankfully done away with the need to continuously walk over to your crates and chests like a peasant every time you need more wood or stone to build something, simply allowing you to use any resources you have stored for any build or craft on your base.  At first, I thought Enshrouded had overlooked this now-essential component but they actual made it a feature that you unlock when you quickly get magic crates. I like how they implemented this and highly recommend making it a top priority for your base!
I have yet to experience the multiplayer component of Enshrouded but I was pleasantly surprised at how soloable the game is. I’ve downed bosses without having to make myself some kind of super build. So far I haven’t found anything that required companions, although like most survival games, I’m sure there is a whole nother kind of fun to be head in co-op. I am also very happy with the quality of the game for an early-access. It doesn’t feel like they rushed it out at all and I can highly recommend it as-is.
This review will continue with late game info and multiplayer review but if you are reading this right now and are a fan of survival, action and exploration games, there is no reason to wait. While it doesn’t change the class in any serious way, the combination of the all of the lessons the devs have learned from the predecessors has created a gem of its own and Enshrouded will surely be in the top survival ranks for some time.
