It begs some level of self-awareness, reviewing a game that’s still in early access. Naturally, I’ll be leaning a bit into the ‘forgive and forget’ mentality when it comes to some of the more lightweight issues with the game. Unnaturally, I’ll be avoiding any potential spoilers in this early review.
TLDR; The game is worth its price tag for those who like the kinds of games it’s advertising itself as, despite the formula it follows becoming a little stale.
Enshrouded describes itself as a “game of survival, crafting, and Action RPG combat, set within a sprawling voxel-based continent”. I find it interesting that the developers went out of their way to describe their game as voxel-based, and in doing some digging, I found that the only people who can agree on what a voxel even is are people who nothing about it. Anyone else who seemed to have a hand steeped in that pool of knowledge all had just slightly different opinions about it, according to the one Reddit post I skimmed through, though it suffices to say that a voxel is something that has something to do with the way things are rendered in-game. Neeto.
As for the rest of the description, I actually think Enshrouded meets the standards of those genres handily. The crafting system feels full, with reliable and intuitive progression. “Action RPG” is a term that is usually used for action games with little to no roleplaying elements, but I’ll give the game credit: the playstyles, considering the game’s somewhat simplistic combat, are actually well fleshed out and vary from one another in feel, aesthetic, and efficacy. I suppose the game barely leans into the survival aspect of its definition somewhat lazily, using Valheim’s method of hunger and thirst to occupy slots of HP and stamina.
Speaking of Valheim, I was entirely surprised to find that the developer of Enshrouded wasn’t the developer of Valheim, Iron Gate Studios (and others). Instead, Keen Games takes the helm here.
I’ll be completely honest, Enshrouded is borrowing a lot from Valheim. With things like the hunger system, the building tech, and the constant, ominous fog that surrounds you, draining your FPS and spinning those GPU fans like there’s no tomorrow, you’d think you were playing Valheim 2: Return of the Sqwuaky Bird.
This isn’t a strict negative at all, but just know: If you didn’t care for Valheim, you aren’t going to find a whole lot at the base of the gameplay that distinguishes the two aside from the fact that Valheim is infinitely easier to run on a budget PC (and also magical wands).
Speaking of wands, my goodness does the magic in this game feel satisfying. Pretty much everything about the combat in this game feels satisfying. Keen Games opted for a lock-on system in almost everything associated with combat: casting and striking (but not shooting!).
When you attack an enemy with a sword, you’re character does a little shimmy over to their position, making the attack feel visceral. When you cast a little magic orb at some fiend, the orb travels upwards and around through the air, chasing its target, making the wands feel like they have thoughts of their own (like when they decide to attack some random NPC in the background of a fight instead of focusing the target you’re actually interested in).
The game also incorporates the Dark Souls theme of “find friendly NPC, NPC teleports to your HUB” kind of gameplay, turning the progression of crafting into one that also incorporates finding neighbors to aid in your gameplay. Not too dissimilar to that of Terraria, I might add.
Again, that’s just another example of what the game borrows from others. But what does Keen Games bring to the table that other games don’t?
In Short, They Bring Intuition
The game is just intuitive. The crafting system is easy to pickup, the building system doesn’t fight with you and has everything you need to build a functional, reliable home that doesn’t have the ground sticking up through its floors, the combat rarely fights with your intentions (lest you use one of them troublesome wands), and the little things that would normally seem like early-access jank with no solutions actually have user-friendly fail-safes in place to keep them from ruining the experience.
One great example of this was during my playthrough with a friend: he beat a quest that involved killing some mobs of enemies in a specific place. I wasn’t there, so I didn’t get the quest completion. After spending some time trying to get the mobs to respawn, we simply restarted the server and, like magic, the mobs of import were back where they needed to be. I doubt this is how Keen Games will keep the method of quest completion ensured in the future, but the fact that the solution exists already is evidence of their gamer-friendly intuition.
It’s all of the little things with Enshrouded: moments where you go “Oh, that’s nice.” that make the game worthwhile and smooth to play (if you can handle the graphical requirements, which are currently trying my PC. 32GB of RAM recommended, folks.)
Since I haven’t said anything too negative about the game, I’ll leave you with this: If you don’t like questing, hand-holding, or having an adventure’s path paved for you, don’t play Enshrouded. Its adventures are all characterized by their quest markers and “follow the natural path” gameplay.
GLHF
-E