Enshrouded is a survival RPG that combines Minecraft and BotW | Hands-off preview
Even as a fairly social person I can respect the need for some privacy away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of humanity. In fact, part of what puts me off many online survival games like Ark: Survival Evolved and Rust is the presence of other people. I’d rather not be ganked or griefed while I’m trying to punch trees in peace. Which is why Enshrouded, the new medieval survival game from Keen Games, has my attention. There are no other players to wreck your rock piles while you’re out picking flowers and murdering rabbits. Oh, and you can dig a massive hole and build your entire base underground.
We recently had the chance to attend a hands-off presentation of Enshrouded, where we were shown around an hour of gameplay and were able to field questions afterwards. Taking inspiration from both Minecraft and Breath of the Wild, Enshrouded is an ambitious open world adventure set in a fantasy land that has been overtaken by a dense magical fog. Monsters and beasts lurk within the mist, which means you’ll need to make repeat excursions into the unknown if you want to get your hands on the best gear and materials.
The idea, as with most games like this (the developers cited Valheim as a major inspiration, too) is to allow you to build a base any way you like, whether it’s a thriving hub of industry where you can craft all day long or a menacing fortress from which to survey the lands below you. But in Enshrouded, you can opt to carve out chunks of the landscape and build your base in a cave.
During the Q&A, Antony Christoulaki (Enshrouded’s Creative Director and co-founder of Keen Games) confirmed that “You can terraform anywhere in the world with your pickaxe… but to use the advanced building tools you have to settle down with a base.” But your base is defined by where you build your Flame Altar, and you can put that wherever you like.
Obviously this in itself is cool. You can build vertically to a frankly insane depth, and there are no physics governing what remains above. So yes, you can also carve out a floating island as long as you can get to it (luckily you can also build pre-fab staircases). Getting down quickly, though, won’t be an issue. You have a wingsuit functionally similar to Breath of the Wild’s paraglider, and a stamina meter that will burn away as you climb, run or swim. Interestingly, there’s no carrying weight. Antony said, “We had that conversation and decided we didn’t want to make a puzzle out of your inventory – which can also be fun. But we left it for now as it would add another layer of balancing to deal with.” Again, though, he did say that if the community asks for it, never say never, essentially.
With Enshrouded heading towards early access, it’s nice to hear the Creative Director confirming how open the company is to feedback. Obviously they can’t promise to implement everything the community wants, but knowing that they’ll be going forward with the intent to listen to the players and examine other avenues is very encouraging.
When asked about the possibility of PvP, we were told that, for now, Endhrouded is a PvE/co-op game only. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Because there is no PvP, you can feel secure leaving your base unguarded while you head out on expeditions, too. You’ll be able to find summoning items that let you summon permanent NPCs into your base such as a blacksmith. You can bring them recipes which don’t just require materials, but also improved conditions. An example we saw was a blacksmith who would only craft certain armour if you built him a shelter to work in. It encourages the building of a functional base that you can populate, rather than just a collection of workbenches and research tables.
Keen Games also developed Portal Knights which has fixed classes from the get-go. Enshrouded has a more malleable system which allows you to build into ranged, melee and magic skills in whichever way you choose. You can respec whenever, too, which facilitates the co-op multiplayer as you can adjust your skills and abilities to suit the needs of a group. For now the focus is on solo and co-op play, although the dev team are looking forward to seeing “what the public wants” after launch, so don’t rule out a PvP or hybrid mode down the line.
It takes the best elements of a standard open world solo RPG and adds on some super intriguing build mechanics. Combat looks pretty fun, too, with a standard light-heavy dodge-parry set-up, but with a host of skills and abilities as well as weapons to mix it up. You can find legendary armour and weaponry with special prefixes, or find rare ingredients to craft unique powerful gear. Antony was keen to stress that there’s no free-crafting or full sandbox mode coming at launch, though it’s something else the team will look at later. At launch, Keen Games really want people to explore the world they’ve built.
Something else we were shown was a quick tour of some of the world, and it’s huge. It reminded me of the recent Ravenbound with a bit of Kingdoms of Amalur thrown in. The overworld is a dense forest pock-marked with ruins and abandoned settlements, while the underground is blanketed by fog that hides numerous monsters, bosses, and even huge entities that you can destroy to reduce the fog for a while. Everything outside of your build zone will respawn over time, including enemies, materials, and even the fog.
Everything I saw during the hands-off demo convinced me that Enshrouded is the kind of survival adventure that I want to play. It looks more interesting and balanced than the recent Frozen Flame, which I felt suffered from a lack of fresh ideas. The free-form approach to base-building, and the onus on exploration that aspires to Link’s most recent adventures on Nintendo Switch, mark Enshrouded as one to keep a very close eye on as the fog clears.
Check out the trailer below for a sneak peak at how building and terraforming will work in Enshrouded.
Enshrouded is expected to come to Steam Early Access in late 2023.
