Quite Voxellent.
If there has been one genre that has been oversaturated the past few years, it's Survival Crafting. These are games that have you living off the land, crafting your tools and weapons, and attempting to conquer a massive open world. With many titles releasing just this calendar year alone, it's becoming increasingly harder to stand out and provide something players haven't seen a dozen times before.
Some take their games to the depths of the ocean or have you braving the Nordic wilds. Others have you commanding a small army of creatures to battle, build, and traverse their massive open worlds. Some choose realism over fantasy, a cartoonish vibe or horror, while others look to provide a fresh take on an existing brand.
Within the last two months alone, we've seen the likes of Valheim and RuneScape: Dragonwilds release to 1.0, executing on their vision through multiple years in Early Access. However, another title has finally seen its 1.0 launch, and that is Enshrouded, a survival crafting RPG that might very well be the best of its kind, and provides an experience so engaging, that it will be incredibly hard for those that follow to be anywhere near as good.
I've sunk about 35 hours into Enshrouded at the time of this writing, and frankly, I'm in awe of what Keen Games has accomplished here. I wasn't too familiar with the title during its time in Early Access, but had seen screenshots here and there. I knew what it was, but I didn't know how much of a traditional RPG it ended up being, given most of these survival crafting games feel more like survival games with RPG elements packed in rather than being RPGs first and survival crafting games second. Enshrouded is confidently the latter, and is all the better for it.
While Enshrouded has survival aspects, and a ton of crafting, I would certainly say it is a less demanding entry in the genre, one that feels almost chill by comparison. Enshrouded doesn't expect you to be a full time passenger on the struggle bus, allowing you to dig deep into those mechanics, but also ensures that you are not wasting hours building up your character only to see the next location put a wall up in front of all that progress, forcing you to start again.
If I had to make a comparison to the explorative nature of Enshrouded, it would be Elden Ring. Sure, Breath of the Wild was the inspiration behind Fromsoft’s masterpiece, but Elden Ring had a world that rewarded deep exploration, in ways Link’s open world adventure did not. Here, there are tons of crypts, ruins, and dungeons that are immaculately hidden, or only accessed at different times of day, such as the Night Sanctums.
The world here to explore is also massive, and isn't big just to be big. The draw distance from each of the few towers is stunning, and being able to glide across to far off places, gives you a new perspective on the genre as most games of this kind usually keep your focus solely on the ground. Here, armed with a grappling hook and a wingsuit, freedom to explore is only a click away.
Enshrouded takes place in a land consumed by a poisonous fog called the Shroud. An ancient race attempted to use it for power, but their own hubris got them killed for it. However, as a descendant of this race, you are woken up from your slumber and are tasked with saving the land and those who once found it home.
As you enter into the world, you'll see both beauty and agony. Pockets of this world are consumed by this Shroud, eating away at the once vibrant landscape. While outside of it, life is still very much as it always was; thriving. However, with a lack of humanity being the stewards of this world, beasts, monsters, and tribes have taken over the land, and it's up to you to reclaim this world back and begin life anew. You do this by first building a settlement, rescuing the souls of the dead, and bringing them back to life one by one to aid you in your quest.
You're known to all as the Flameborn, a being infused with a magical flame that once held the shroud at bay. While anyone else would immediately perish if consumed by this fog, you can withstand it, at least to a point. In order to dive even deeper into the more treacherous fog-ridden locales, you'll need to level up a flame altar that becomes just as important as the clothes on your back or the weapon in your hand.
Building the flame altar up boosts your core stats but also makes you less affected by the fog, meaning you can withstand its effects a little bit longer. At the start, you'll be able to withstand about five minutes in the Shroud before you perish. While upgrading your flame altar will increase that timer, you can also consume potions that will add on a minute or two. And, should you find giant red trees in the heart of the Shroud, mostly in Elixir Wells, chopping them down will dissolve the fog's hold on that patch of land. However, many of these trees are guarded by dangerous threats.
Once you place down your Flame Altar, you'll then need to track down various craftsmen. From a blacksmith to a hunter, to others with a flair for crafting, these helpers can aid in providing you the means to fashion better equipment, build luxuries to your homestead, and other means to save the land, and look good while doing it.
While food and water are present, they are not required to just stay alive. Food and water have various benefits. From increasing your max health or stamina, to providing resistance bonuses to keep you alive longer. Still, there are a ton of different food types to cook, and waterskins to craft, ensuring you can remain hydrated and fed at a moment's notice.
Dying out in the world isn't too punishing, but does provide just enough punishment to ensure you retrieve your lost items. While you'll retain your equipped weapons and experience, death causes you to lose select items from your held inventory and creates a gravestone marker for you to retrieve them. That said, while they will remain there, even if you die on the way to retrieve it, I do wish highlighting them on the map would indicate their contents, especially since, at one time, I had nine of them across the map, and needed to figure out which one had some crafting items I had finally tracked down.
Combat works off a parry and stun system that works well enough here without feeling too inspired. Attacking and dodging do feel good, and the parry window is fairly generous without feeling too forgiving. Enemies have both a health bar and a stun bar, and depleting the latter can leave them open to your more powerful attacks. One of the first skills you can learn is called “Merciless Attack” and I strongly suggest using a skill point to unlock it.
The skill tree is filled with a lot of solid choices to move you in the direction of a certain class, albeit without the need to fully commit to being just that class. This freeform system does have select abilities that certainly differentiate you from a ranger or a barbarian, or becoming a full mage or even a battlemage, if you plan on getting into the thick of it but wanting some magic to toy around with.
Regardless of your choices, you can equip any weapon and not feel penalized for doing so. Sure, a low mana count will make you a rubbish mage, but it's a system that does allow a lot of flexibility, if a system that isn't too original. However, as you sink more points into the categories that fuel the endpoint for those classes, you'll slowly get better at the likes of melee, ranged, or magic combat, while also being able to take a few hits.
Unlike most survival crafting games, you'll find your gear in chests or be able to craft it, should you want to go that route. I found a flame sword that also lit up my surroundings, and I would use resources at the blacksmith to level up the sword, making it evolve with me. In fact, every weapon or piece of gear I am wearing was just found in a chest, whether that be in a shallow ruin or a deep and explorative dungeon.
The building in Enshrouded is absolutely incredible, allowing you to not just place down parts of flooring, walls, or ceilings, but in different sizes to allow you to build in larger chunks or smaller, to get that perfect fit. You can also adjust the angle and orientation of objects to, allowing you to adjust objects you place down, just in case the ground is not level. You can also use this to remove large chunks of the ground, or simply grab a mining axe and cut into the ground or rock yourself. Hell, the mining axe can be used to help scale cliffs if you have the patience.
As I started to find more souls and bring them alive, I built them little homes. A bed, a roof over their head, and even a table or chair, some plates, a cup, and maybe a bookshelf, complete with the books I’d find. If they were someone important, like a shopkeeper, I would go a bit more into detail about a counter, and maybe a room in the back for stock. It's incredible what can be made here, and you can even import worlds created by other players.
Since the building is all voxel based, you can really adapt your design to anything, allowing you to build homes into the side of a mountain and even make a stairwell to accommodate the scenery. Provided you have a Flame Altar nearby, you can even remove locked doors to dungeons, areas where you won't have access to yet. It's fascinating.
What I really like about Enshrouded that bugged me in Dragonwilds was if you came across a ruined town, with decayed buildings, and destroyed homesteads, you had to leave them as they were. Here, you can plunk down a Flame Altar and rebuild those homes, making them bigger and better than ever before.
The only issue I have with the building is needing to have the more cosmetic stuff in your inventory, not just in a chest. Placing down couches, beds, tables, and even a toilet, and you have to have it on your person and in one of your quick bar slots. And, with every NPC having their own crafting menu, needing to rely on them can be a small annoyance.
My time with Enshrouded has been exclusively offline, given that crossplay is not currently turned on. Online play does vary from PC to PS5, with PC supporting 16 players and PS5 only hosting half that. There are tons here to explore online with sharing your world with others, checking out what other people have built, and adventuring together. Thankfully, the game does support quest sharing, so you never have to worry about all your work being for nothing.
While Enshrouded isn't going to win any awards for its visuals, it's still a striking game, especially when you start to explore the shrouded areas and explore deeper into many of the game's dungeons. When the day is at its brightest, it's a glorious sight to behold, but that overcast and early morning view can drain a bit of the game's charm and color.
Enshrouded has been a fantastic experience despite crossplay not being active yet. My time with it has been strictly solo, but unlike Valheim or Dragonwilds, I've rather enjoyed the single-player nature of what I currently have going. Enshrouded takes a genre and builds it around an already solid RPG adventure, one with just enough intrigue to make me care about its world, and the tools needed to explore it to its fullest.
Developer - Keen Games.
Publisher - Keen Games.
Released - October 15th, 2026.
Available On - PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox (2027).
Rated - (T) - Violence.
Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5.
Review Access - A review code for Enshrouded was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.