Enshrouded is an ARPG with some amazing dungeons, exploration, and base building. I could spend all day getting lost on the map and just exploring dungeons for my kind of fun. They also made it easy to join and have fun with some friends.
I’ve been wanting to play this one for quite some time. So, when I had an opportunity to do so, I jumped in. So far, it has not been disappointing. Perhaps one of the coolest things is that my character is not tied just to my single-player game. When a friend wanted to host a game, I was able to quickly join, and anything my character had on him from his levels to his inventory came along.
While I could go make a second character. I feel this kind of addresses a big issue with a lot of ARPGs, where you can play in a single game or with friends. You want to go play with your friends. However, don’t always want to start. While sure things like questing, building up your town, and some other things are not shared between the different games you join. This makes it nice to go enjoy some fun with friends and come back to your own game having gotten something out of it, even if it was just experienced and an armor drop.
This game is an amazing solo. It is, however, so much more fun with friends. Even more so if you get murdered, miss something easy in a dungeon, and just start laughing about how stupid the thing is that you missed. I ended up getting a bit carried away for my first couple of days playing till I caught up in level and gear level a little bit.
This game is in early access, and so there are some areas that do feel a little lacking. I could kind of tell that character animation and jumping were a little off. Add to the mix that you can craft a glider and use it to get around. Let’s just say there were some funny moments of me smashing into a mountain and then popping up on top of it. Nothing at all would keep me from playing the game.
I’ve never been big on having massive character creation progress. There are quite a few different hairstyles, beards, and a few of the usual things you can pick out. For me, this was just enough; I could spend a couple of movements creating my character. For those who enjoy a deeper process, that's not what you will be getting here.
Regardless of whether you plan on playing in a solo world or hosting a server. There are a lot of settings you can change. They also just have a couple of defaults for those that don’t want to fine-tune things like damage, survival aspects, and drop rates. I kind of wish all games with an option for single player in 2025 and beyond just allowed you to modify a bunch of settings. Things can also be changed afterward, so you can fine-tune your world as needed.
A core piece of this game is focused on your Flame Altar. This defends how large a space you get to build in. The kind of deadly areas you can venture deeper and deeper into. Along with some other stats.
What is rather nice is the ability to have more than one Flame Alter, and as you progress along, that limit is increased. If you are not in an area that prohibits using teleportation, you can teleport back home or to a couple of other areas that you unlock along the way.
You do have your usual survival crafting mechanics with cutting down trees, mining rocks, and gathering plants. As you advance along, your ability to craft different building materials, tools, and machines increases.
The game has a heavy focus on rescuing different NPCs from around the world and bringing them back to your village. As you do, you unlock further features, crafting options, and your base starts to feel more alive.
While in my solo game, I ended up just making one giant building and housing everything inside it. When playing with others, you can upgrade enough to have space for a couple of players and the NPCs to have their own homes. The NPCs don’t need a lot of space other than a bed and a couple of crafting benches that they unlock.
A massive part of my enjoyment in this game, at least for me, is the dungeons and other areas you get to explore. Some of them could be a small building with a couple of rooms. Then you have a place like above, where you have to solve how to unlock a bunch of doors. Exploring quite a few different areas. Along with fighting a ton of enemies and finding loot along the way.
I always get excited when I see buildings off into the distance. Even more so when you can tell it’s some massive place. The bigger ones tend to have a respawn point you can activate not only at the start, but if they are big enough, along the way as well. As you are going to get killed in this game and not having to run a massive distance back is rather nice. There is no save spamming in this game that people tend to use in single-player ARPGs.
This game also just loves to hide loot. Sometimes, even after I've cleared a dungeon or an area, I'll go around looking to see if I missed anything. Sure enough, there was some loot I had to glide down from the top of the dungeon to reach after I thought I was done with the area.
Large areas of the map are also enshrouded. While in those areas, you have a limited amount of time that you can survive in them. They tend to contain more challenging creatures to fight. There are ways to expand how long you last in these areas. Along with finding areas that were designed for you to refill your meter.
My first couple of times in such areas were rather intimidating. Even so, since not that far from where the game has you place down your first village. You see a massive abyss that contains it. After a while, you end up learning the tricks to getting around in such areas and escaping, hopefully, before the timer runs out and you die.
As you progress along and get more and more quests that you are not sure when you will get around to running. As you can’t help but stop at every place you see to explore. You start to realize just how massive the map is.
The section above is just a tiny amount of it. This is one of those games where you can’t fully zoom out to see the entire map. I ended up being able to scroll for a decent distance above this location before finding the map's edge.
Between the mountain terrain and the enshrouded areas below. A huge part of any time you go out to adventure is just getting to a mission or a mine to farm in. While you can set up further villages to use as points to teleport. Along with finding spire towers that allow you to teleport to as well. Your ability to glide and walk around is another big part of the game. A lot of times, I ended up having more fun just trying to work out how to get to a location than the actual activity I needed to do once there.
I have plans for further content on this game in the future, that is, how much fun I've already been having in it. This is also one of those games where I've lost track of time. I’ll head off to check out new areas, then realize it’s 4 AM and I had intended to go to bed at 2 AM. Rest in peace, my sleep schedule for now.
Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about Enshrouded.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.
Disclosure: This content was written during early access.
