Is Enshrouded Worth It?

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• Review

• Time Expenditure

• Cost

• What Players Are Saying

Enshrouded is a survival crafting game that puts you in the shoes of a lonely Flameborn within the land of Embervale. Here, you will need to survive, thrive, and push back against the Shroud. So, is this game worth it?

Enshrouded: What Is The Shroud?

The Shroud is a deadly fog that you will encounter in Enshrouded. Where did it come from though, and how does it affect you?

Here, we are going to answer this big question and help you decide if Enshrouded is worth it or not for you. This will include reviews, time expenditure, cost, and thoughts from other players. It's important to note that Enshrouded is still in early access, so there is potential growth in the future.

Review

As a quick recap, Enshrouded is a survival crafting game set in a world that has been infested with a mysterious fog-like area called the Shroud. One of your main goals is to conquer enemies within the Shroud while finding five NPCs scattered nearby and placing them in your base.

Enshrouded works as a survival game. The world is large enough to make treks to new locations feel like true journeys. There are also many quality-of-life additions from typical survival games that are much needed. One highlight is the addition of fast travel.

You are able to fast travel to Flame Altars and Spires (which work similarly to towers in Breath of the Wild). There are a certain amount of altars that you can have active, but by upgrading your main one, you can essentially create more fast travel points.

Another quality-of-life feature that is appreciated is keeping most of your inventory after death. While you still need to do a corpse run, it's a bit easier when you keep most of your inventory. Gone are the days of losing all your armor and weapons.

We are particularly a fan of the building in the game. Building pieces connect together seamlessly, avoiding clipping or unrealistic bits. As a basic example, if you place a stone ceiling in a room, little stone supports will also appear. These give structures a realistic look.

If you are a fan of the building aspect of survival games, Enshrouded has got you covered. There are several building materials, as well as dozens of decorations that can be placed. You can even opt to place individual blocks to make a custom structure.

It's important to bring up the fact that Enshrouded is still in early access. This makes for bugs and quirks that can be quite bothersome at times. Many players also report that bugs are more frequent when playing with others. Still, Enshrouded can truly shine when you play with friends.

At times, the world in Enshrouded can feel lonely. If you are playing solo, it's just you in the wide world. With a mass amount of quests, it can be easy to become overwhelming. One minute, you are rescuing an NPC, and the next, you have 16 quests that are popping up on your map.

With all the content available, it can be hard to focus on what to do. On top of this, you may simply need to get stronger to do most of the content. Some quests are incredibly challenging when compared to the quest right before in the progression.

Overall, Enshrouded has its quirks, but it's shaping up to be a classic survival game that is best played with a few friends. With regular updates, Enshrouded will become a force to be reckoned with, compared with games such as Valheim.

Time Expenditure

Putting a completion time on survival games can often be tough, and Enshrouded is no exception. There is a lot of content to complete, but you can also put everything on pause to make a large mansion to hold all of your NPCs.

Here at TheGamer, we obtained all five NPCs and explored a fair amount of Embervale within around 25 hours. There are four biomes though, and this exploration only covered two. This is by no means all there is in the game; this playtime included building houses for each NPC, as well as farming materials for the buildings.

Overall, you can expect to spend several dozen hours playing Enshrouded. The map is not procedurally generated, which can limit replayability, but a hand-crafted map makes for great exploration, as every enemy and resource has been carefully placed.

Cost

Enshrouded is currently only available on Steam, with a normal price of $29.99 USD. Thankfully, there is no extra content to purchase; once you buy the base game, you will have everything. This may change in the future if any DLC drops.

What Players Are Saying

Definitely Worth A Look - Ryan Bamsey

Enshrouded is a very impressive game. It has a great deal of content and feels incredibly polished. While there are some hiccups in the form of somewhat dated mechanics (overly limited inventory in the name of progression unlocks, corpse runs, etc.) it's a fun time, and it's going to be very interesting to see how the game grows and develops as time goes on.

Best With Friends - Harry Alston

Enshrouded is best enjoyed with your pals on a server. That's not to say you can't play it solo - enemies level scale on the number of players - but completing all the tasks might be a bit daunting on your own. It's a huge, open world, with lots to explore, even though at times it can feel a little empty.

Keen Games have developed a game that fuses so many elements of other popular titles, from Zelda to Minecraft. The game is still in early access and still needs some polishing before the final product.

Worth It For The Endless Exploration - Jacqueline Zalace

A lot of survival crafting games come out every year, and not all of them can be a hit. With Enshrouded though, we have a potential hit on our hands. The world is absolutely massive with tons of unique locations and materials to explore.

Fans of this game genre should definitely give Enshrouded a try. If you are on the fence about playing, you won't be disappointed. Even for those new to the genre, you won't be thrust into an overly difficult game. It has a little something for everyone; building, slaying bosses, exploring the deadly Shroud, and farming.

Enshrouded: Beginner's Guide

A full, detailed rundown of how to get started in Keen Games' open-world, co-op ARPG, Enshrouded.