Confusing Early Access Evaluation

 Exciting examination of survival with many Early Access hitches to iron out.

Before I ever began the main mission of Enshrouded, I wasted thirty hours of my week building a fortified town in the meadows. It had been a while since a game captured my deepest feeling of innocent amazement. At its Early Access release, this action-RPG survival sim is already captivating due to its eclectic blend of inspirations from titles such as Valheim, Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game's breathtakingly beautiful high-fantasy artwork, expansive open world, clever crafting mechanisms, apparently endless base building, and While the rewarding character customization is great, it is also tarnished by a few real and figurative flaws, a dull tale with mediocre puzzle design, and awkward action combat that is only getting started. Nevertheless, after spending 62 hours relishing in its rustic fantasy charm, it was simple to overlook such hiccups and happily lose yourself in its depths with a companion.

While the rewarding character customization is great, it is also tarnished by a few real and figurative flaws, a dull tale with mediocre puzzle design, and awkward action combat that is only getting started. Nevertheless, after spending 62 hours relishing in its rustic fantasy charm, it was simple to overlook such hiccups and happily lose yourself in its depths with a companion.

Shadowy Screenshots

These notes and journal entries are fairly interesting, but after you, the Flameborn, spawn in the Cinder Vault at the southernmost tip of its vast world and then forge your own path, these are pretty much the only explicit storytelling Enshrouded does, save from a brief opening cutscene and a few dialogues related to quests. Still, hey! My home base, at least, is looking quite good. Complete with a functional farmland I have a lived-in-looking village to house my NPC companions, a network of caves and strategically placed grappling hook anchors that make each location more accessible, and a farm where I grow crops for healing potions and essential stat-raising food items.

The nicest thing is how simple and enticing it is to construct things like this, especially considering how much space your customBases can be established inside the complex network of survival and role-playing systems in Enshrouded. Besides, the base I constructed along the road might be the real major tale. Exploring Enshrouded's map, which allows you to build bases practically anywhere, requires building. Tools like mining picks and rakes allow you to easily harvest materials and shape the terrain, adding to the building system. It's amazing how rapidly you can terraform practically any area with a pick and even make new pathways through places like collapsed caverns or previously unpassable cliffsides.

I adore how the blocks you place naturally blend in with the surroundings.

However, once you construct a Flame Altar using a few standard materials and set it in position, you may start placing your own buildings, furniture, plants, crafting areas, NPCs, and other elements. This is required to advance in your map exploration, as the only locations you can instantly teleport return to are your custom bases, except for a few sporadic fast-travel towers. More crucial, though, is that it allows you to utilize the handy Construction Hammer. You'll need to locate or make one for yourself using the similarly helpful crafting menu, just like everything else in Enshrouded, but once you do When you have voxel-based blocks in your possession, you can fast switch between prefab shapes and block kinds by using the ALT and CTRL keys. You can also effortlessly insert or remove the blocks in any number of configurations.

It's easy to swiftly construct whole structures with the variety of prefab shapes available, but it's even neater when you can arrange individual blocks on a much smaller scale to create unique patterns. I really adore how the blocks blend in with the naturally-it provides buildings made with multiple block kinds a feeling of personality, as if they have a past, as opposed to appearing as though they were thrown together quickly in Enshrouded's superb construction UI.

You'll ultimately have to make your way farther and start completing missions if you want even more blocks to play with. These tasks are typically offered by the five NPC crafters, who can be unlocked by releasing them from Ancient Vaults during the first few hours of the main Enshrouded quest. However, those primarily function as a general guide, and the majority of Enshrouded's discoveries occur when you chance upon a bit of lore in a far-off place that directs you to a dungeon, an area with a hidden treasure, or a jumping puzzle. New block kinds and other crafting resources are typically hidden there. Once you uncover them, you can craft them again at base along with any newly unlocked recipes.

Disappearing Behind a Shroud

Nobody is pressuring you emotionally to get to the next goal, in contrast to most RPGs. There isn't a conventional "critical path," so you'll need to continually upgrade your Flame if you want to venture farther outside of the current biome, of which there are four as of the game's Early Access debut. That's the power that sustains your avatar's life despite the deadly and eerie Shroud that envelops large portions of the map.

Being alive in the Shroud is particularly difficult because you only have a finite amount of time to live each time you enter it. Every visit starts with a countdown timer that only restarts when you find hourglass capsules or reemerge. But you die eventually, if you stay inside for too long. While dying merely results in you losing some of your stuff and returning to the closest Flame Altar—or, if you're lucky, one of the few—this is only a small annoyance if you've established a base nearby.  sporadic checkpoints. It makes sense, then, that being inside the Shroud prevents you from leaving quickly, providing a pleasant element of risk to otherwise simple forays into the wild.

A pleasant degree of danger is added by the Shroud's inability to travel quickly. 

Enhancing your Flame makes the Shroud less deadly, but getting there will require a lot of grinding, thus Enshrouded could use a little extra assistance there. The landscape is populated mostly by NPCs that you rescue and establish in your colony. Without the right direction, it's possible to lose hours searching in circles for specific items without knowing where they are. One such item is amber, which is elusive and only found in small areas of the Shroud area of the second biome, where visibility is already limited by spores and fog. 

If you get lost, at least your journal has enough tutorials to get you started with Enshrouded's vast array of systems. Additionally, you get more minutes when you do eventually level up your Flame. With all that extra Shroud survivability, you can access farther-off, higher-level biomes like the sand-strewn desert expanse of the Kindlewastes and the dry plains of the Nomad Highlands, which are both closed off by higher-tier Shroud zones and comprise the current endgame.

Enshrouded has a respectably substantial bestiary that starts to take shape if you travel far enough outside of the first zones. The formidable Vukah Brawler and the devastating, dragon-like Wispwyvern are two of my favorite opponents; they both offer a well-balanced fight and drop a potent gear when defeated.

You can find a ton of unique items, crafting supplies, and equipment by exploring each of Enshrouded's carefully designed points of interest, which are heavily themed around the biomes they're located in. Examples of such finds include a shiny set of armor I discovered in the capital city that trades Shroud survival time for an increased chance to land critical blows or a glowing blue sword I discovered buried in an abandoned village. Although these are typically strong enough to maintain a sense of stability in the progression, Enshrouded's experience point-based leveling system takes some time to ramp up before reaching the game's hard cap of level 25.

Experience comes with a mind-numbing slowness.

Since experience is primarily gained through fighting, it can be mind-numbingly sluggish. However, once you reach level 15 or so, its subtleties do start to come together. Using a combination of Enshrouded's intricate skill trees—which were greatly influenced by those in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim—I was able to transform my Flameborn into a formidable Battlemage with a distinct fighting style, allowing me to take advantage of multiple magic damage bonuses to deal absurdly high amounts of fire damage. This arrangement is adaptable. Enough to let each player experiment with Enshrouded's fun array of abilities and items while theory-crafting their way into a traditional role, such as tank, healer, or DPS.

Khazad To whom?

It's entertaining enough just to explore Enshrouded's map and find new things, even on quick excursions. Since there are no conventional NPC merchants to sell you anything, it might frequently feel like every effort counts in gathering a significant amount of resources. Yes, all objects in this universe are either made by hand or found. The standard open-world fog of war covers anything you haven't yet explored, but it's liberally peppered with forts and abandoned settlements, Ancient Obelisks that expand the map, those fast-travel towers I mentioned before, and other interesting features. Elixir Wells offers a quick start to dungeon-delving enjoyment. Typically, they need you to venture into the Shroud for a few minutes at a time to locate and destroy the nearby Shroud Root. This removes the Shroud from a limited region in exchange for a few additional skill points.

In the same vein, if you're playing online and would prefer to leave the building and crafting to your friends, you can ignore those aspects completely and devote the majority of your time to growing your map, which is conveniently shared with all players on the same server, up to 16 at a time. If you have enough friends on a multiplayer server to perform the heavy job for you, you might not even need to spend any time in the Shroud. Not to mention all the activities and discoveries that await you above ground.

Paradoxically, the previously mentioned locations of interest are most effective when utilized as elaborate set pieces to conceal treasure and engage in combat with monsters before allowing you to continue on your journey. On the other hand, Enshrouded suffers greatly when it tries to include any kind of puzzle, and a significant portion of the game's locations are gated by unimaginative obstacles that need you to avoid traps by turning some switches to open a nearby door. However, none of those usually require a lot of thought. Most have the answers clearly visible or, predictably, right around the bend past a few spikes. traps. I frequently discovered that it was simpler to glide over these traps and cheese my way past them, therefore Enshrouded's many pointless riddles are just needless extra labor that could be done elsewhere.

However, these bland puzzles make up a very small portion of Enshrouded's total experience. After a long day of creating, spelunking, and questing, it's much nicer when you and your friends reach a lovely, twilight hilltop where you may relax around enjoy the stunning view of the castle town you've been creating for weeks while sipping wine around a campfire. Nearly every aspect of Enshrouded's art style is visually appealing, making it dangerously simple to get lost in its handmade fantasy world—whether you're traveling or building your ideal stronghold. Enshrouded captivated me from the first instant I stepped outside the Cinder Vault with its gorgeous rolling green meadows of the beginning biome, which stretch out into the distance and progressively transform into a collage of massive, snow-capped mountains and towering sand dunes. When the graphical settings are at their highest, I'm constantly struck by how colorful and lively this environment is, down to the last loose cobblestone in the foundation of my fortress.

This world appears so alive and bright, that it never ceases to astonish me.

I used to sit by a bonfire on an overlook above my base sometimes, waiting for the perfect moment when the virtual sun rose above a far-off mountain peak, casting a glow on my village illuminated only by torches and shimmering off the rolling fog nebulas. With seamless transitions between close-up and far-off landscapes, minimal texture pop-in, and few missed frames, Enshrouded can look and perform like this. However, this is presuming you're using the correct hardware; I was using a desktop with a 4070 Ti, a Ryzen 3900x, and 32 gigabytes of RAM. My companion joined me on a laptop for gaming that just somewhat worse specifications, which ought to have functioned practically as well in theory. Rather, they spoke of a far less polished experience in which they frequently encountered a variety of inexplicable technical problems, such as continuous frame dips, desktop crashes, and their avatar being repeatedly shot out of a tunnel they were mining and dying somewhere on the other side of our base.

Digouts and Dungeons

Without any rideable mounts, it's nice that I can create a glider and a grappling hook to get around the open world more quickly. However, neither feels

very terrific to use right now because of a cumbersome control system that feels at odds with itself. Frequently, I intend to jump, but it sends me into glider mode, or I mean to loot something off the ground, but I unintentionally swing off the edge of a cliff. On behalf of Enshrouded, these issues are most noticeable while using a standard mouse and keyboard combination. However, the controls didn't start to make sense until I tried using an Xbox One controller, which was a lot later in my game.

Since the grappling hook depends on grappling hook anchors that resemble the ones in the Ratchet & Clank series—when they function, anyway—it is especially disappointing that you cannot use the grappling hook anywhere you like. They are sporadically spaced apart, and using them consumes a significant amount of energy. As a result, you can usually just swing between them until you improve your grappling hook and gain more stamina, which can take some time.

The Top 10 Games for Survival

Later in the campaign, players may upgrade both the grappling hook and the glider to higher-tier versions, but even then, Enshrouded's endurance system feels like it's limiting them. Enshrouded's stamina pool is unjustly limited until you finally increase the Endurance stat with food items and stat-boosting abilities. This is symbolized by a green wheel that quickly depletes when you do anything other than jog (a la The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom). Enshrouded has an advantage in that its web of unlocked talents is so interestingly layered with different moves that I hate having to use up my few skill points on things like double-eating items and abilities that raise stats. Enshrouded's web of unlocked talents is so interestingly layered with maneuvers that it stinks that I have to spend my few skill points on things like double-jumping and a stamina drain reduction when gliding to make Enshrouded's movement feel decent at all. This works somewhat in the character's favor.

Its inconsistent controls and awkward movement translate into its mediocre hack-and-slash action fighting system, which makes me think of what you would create if you built a Frankenstein's monster. of third-person action game combat features from previous games. Its blocking, parrying, and dodge-rolling aren't often quick enough to keep up with Elden Ring's viciously aggressive foes and top-heavy weapon animations, despite having Breath of the Wild's tricky target-lock camera mixed in.

The hostile AI strikes in random groups and attacks nonstop.

A particularly annoying enemy type in the Shroud enjoys hovering over the battlefield and firing homing missiles at you every few seconds. It can be quite unfair when my avatar has to fight to keep enough stamina to avoid those attacks while defending against an endless swarm of insects that keep spawning from all directions. That is just one annoying example, but almost everything in combat requires stamina at some point, including parrying an opponent's sword attack, avoiding a boss's unblockable blow, and using my staff to cast a spell. This implies that I'll frequently find it difficult to predict when I'll run out of either resource, making me an easy target for the assault of destruction.

Enshrouded's extremely aggressive enemy AI, which strikes nonstop and frequently ambushes me in unpredictable huge groups, makes this much more difficult. It feels like these encounters are designed for much faster controls. Every piece of gear in Enshrouded's open world, save for armor, has a durability meter, which is a touch aggravating. Legendary weapons, in particular, tend to have the lowest durability scores of any item for some reason. While it's nice that everything in your inventory may be automatically repaired whenever you reach a workbench or an anvil, the former is only accessible at a bespoke base, and the latter is frequently too uncommon to be trusted. Additionally, you'll need to locate or make new potions back at base if you use up your supply during the fight.

Handicrafts

It takes a ton of crafting to unlock Enshrouded's endgame sections and get to the Flame level cap of six. All of this is related to the helpful NPCs I already described, who frequently send you on fetch missions to obtain the next item needed for crafting, such as the smelter used by the blacksmith or the tools used by the carpenter. Enshrouded asks you to accumulate a significant amount of patience while you build up a complex network of material refining stations that eventually feed into each other and sustain its deep crafting ecology. To make armor, for example, the Blacksmith needs a ton of earth and wood, which must be burned to make charcoal, which is then needed to process ore into ingots.

However, all of the previously described materials have further use in other areas of the crafting pipeline. For example, soil is necessary for both farming and alchemy. In the meantime, wood is an essential component of carpentry. A consistent flow of each of these materials requires numerous iterations of mining, harvesting, refining, and making. That can get boring after a while, but it's also thrilling to discover the next crafting tool and all the new base-building options and recipes that go along with it. The many components of Enshrouded's real-time gameplay are connected via those systems, since however, everything I have described has applications outside of creating; for example, the soil is necessary for farming. The majority of the main story in Enshrouded consists of NPC fetch quests; if you're not already enjoying the grind, they won't make up for Enshrouded's lethargic pacing.

But Enshrouded's most amazing features are concealed underneath its mechanisms for creation. Returning to my Blacksmith example, the Carpenter uses ingots and charcoal as valuable byproducts of blacksmithing to construct furniture. To create the sexiest-looking décor, you'll need a consistent supply of wooden logs, planks, and hardwood. Each of the five NPCs and their corresponding crafting stations interact similarly, and ultimately you'll be able to access some quite intriguing recipes that utilize everything you've saved. The degree of interconnectivity ensures that every item and raw resource is valuable all the way to the finish, which is crucial because there is no money and you cannot sell anything you have in excess.

However, all of these material production processes are passive and need time to finish. You will frequently need to plan your expeditions to take up enough time to buffer out lengthy cycles of refining materials, manufacturing, and maintaining your treasury of items thereafter because there is no system in place to automatically ferry materials between production locations. That's why maintaining a functioning base in Enshrouded can at times resemble managing a Stardew Valley farm. Building as many chests, setting up as many crafting stations, and planting as many crops as your stronghold can accommodate is at least an option. However, after a time, I began to frequently have crashes to the desktop when my main base became too busy.

The Decision

Anyone who has ever desired to construct a castle in a dangerous fantasy world will probably find Enshrouded to be instantly popular, and it makes the building process enjoyable and simple with a set of simple tools. Although Enshrouded's vague story isn't all that powerful, its puzzles are forgettable, and its combat and movement systems could use some fine-tuning, its RPG systems are already solid enough to carry you through its open world for a few dozen hours, even if you don't care much about crafting or building. It was a nice 62-hour journey since, happily, there's typically no rush to do anything other than try to uncover the next spectacular place.