Developed and published by Keen Games, Enshrouded has spent more than two and a half years in Early Access on PC before reaching its full release, bringing its ambitious survival RPG to PlayStation 5. Set in the fallen fantasy kingdom of Embervale, the game combines exploration, crafting, action-oriented combat and extensive building tools into an adventure about reclaiming a world consumed by a deadly mist known as the Shroud. Its premise is familiar territory for the genre, but the way its different systems feed into one another gives the adventure a stronger sense of purpose than a simple cycle of gathering resources and upgrading equipment. The result is an appealing proposition for players who want the freedom of a survival sandbox without having to invent every objective themselves.
The story begins with the player awakening as a Flameborn, one of the few remaining hopes for a civilisation that has collapsed under the influence of the Shroud. Embervale is littered with abandoned settlements, ruined structures and the remnants of a society whose fate gradually becomes clearer through exploration. The narrative provides a reason to push into dangerous territory, but it rarely feels like the strongest part of the experience. Much of the background is communicated through scattered letters, journals and other written fragments, meaning that important details can easily be missed or forgotten. Although the mysteries surrounding the world and its ancient inhabitants offer occasional reasons to investigate further, the overarching story lacks the dramatic pull that could have made the journey more memorable. Instead, the real appeal lies in discovering what lies beyond the next ridge and gradually transforming a devastated landscape into something worth protecting.
Fortunately, Enshrouded understands that exploration works best when curiosity is consistently rewarded. Embervale features forests, rocky highlands, deserts, snowy mountains and settlements reclaimed by nature, with plenty of caves, enemy strongholds and abandoned buildings to investigate. The Shroud introduces a more dangerous dimension to these expeditions, limiting how long players can remain inside its lethal fog and encouraging them to prepare before venturing into affected areas. Destroying the sources of the corruption requires better equipment and the ability to overcome the creatures protecting them, linking exploration directly to character progression. Climbing, grappling and gliding also make navigating the environment more interesting than simply following roads between quest markers. Reaching elevated viewpoints reveals new destinations, while a well-timed glide can turn a seemingly inaccessible location into a tempting shortcut. Although the overall progression is more structured than the expansive landscape initially suggests, the world consistently provides reasons to leave the safety of a settlement and investigate another distant landmark.
Survival and crafting form the backbone of that progression, but Keen Games has done a good job of making these activities feel connected rather than arbitrary. Gathering timber, mining ore, hunting creatures and collecting other materials supplies the ingredients for better equipment and more advanced crafting stations. The most important additions to a growing settlement are the survivors rescued during expeditions. Bringing specialists such as a blacksmith, hunter, carpenter and alchemist back to the player’s base unlocks additional recipes and production possibilities, turning rescue missions into meaningful milestones rather than optional distractions. New workstations open up further crafting opportunities, which in turn help players prepare for more dangerous regions and tougher opponents. This creates a satisfying loop in which exploration supports construction, construction enables better equipment, and improved equipment makes further exploration possible. Some resources nevertheless require considerable repetition to collect, and the volume of crafting options can become daunting for newcomers. The menus also lack the clarity needed to make every part of this otherwise approachable system feel effortless.
Building is arguably the game’s greatest strength. The Flame Altar establishes a construction area in which players can create anything from a modest shelter to an elaborate fortress, while the ability to reshape the terrain opens up possibilities beyond placing prefabricated structures on a flat surface. Hillsides can be carved into underground homes, mountains can become foundations for sprawling strongholds, and entire settlements can be constructed to accommodate rescued survivors and their workshops. A broad selection of architectural styles, furnishings and decorative items gives creative players plenty of reasons to keep expanding their base long after basic survival is no longer a concern. The system is also more than a cosmetic distraction, because a well-developed settlement becomes the operational center of the adventure, housing the facilities needed to manufacture equipment and advance through the game’s progression systems. There are occasional rough edges in construction, including placement quirks and objects that do not always sit convincingly in the environment, but these issues do little to diminish the sheer flexibility on offer. For players who enjoy designing and refining a virtual home, Enshrouded provides an unusually compelling sandbox.
Combat, by comparison, is competent rather than exceptional. Players can develop their characters through an extensive skill tree, combining melee abilities, ranged attacks and magic instead of being permanently locked into a single class. This flexibility makes it possible to experiment with different approaches, while the ability to redistribute talent points allows a build to evolve as new equipment and abilities become available. Weapons and magical attacks offer enough variety to support different playstyles, and tougher encounters reward preparation, appropriate equipment and an understanding of enemy attack patterns. Nevertheless, the underlying fighting mechanics remain relatively conventional. Attacking, blocking and finding opportunities to strike are functional, but encounters do not always have the depth or precision needed to match the ambition of the surrounding world. Some enemies can inflict substantial damage when they close the distance, which can make certain builds feel disproportionately vulnerable, while boss encounters and animation quality are not consistently as polished as the game’s strongest environmental work. Combat is an important part of the progression loop, but it is rarely the main reason to keep playing.
The controls and interface are similarly practical without being entirely frictionless. The underlying systems are reasonably easy to understand, and the combination of straightforward gathering, accessible crafting and a flexible character progression system helps make a complex survival RPG less intimidating than it might initially appear. However, the number of recipes, equipment options, crafting stations and character upgrades means that players will still need time to become familiar with the menus. Interface organisation could be more intuitive, particularly when switching between the game’s many interconnected activities. This is worth bearing in mind on PlayStation 5, where the experience depends on navigating these systems with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard.
Visually, Enshrouded succeeds through atmosphere and environmental variety rather than sheer technical spectacle. Its voxel-based construction technology supports the freedom to modify the landscape, while the art direction gives the different regions distinct identities. Lush vegetation and open valleys contrast with ruined settlements, barren mountain ranges and the more hostile territories surrounding the Shroud. Lighting and color play an important role in establishing the mood, particularly where the deadly mist transforms otherwise familiar landscapes into unsettling places to explore. The improved distant scenery in the 1.0 release also helps reinforce the appeal of looking towards a far-off tower or mountain and deciding to investigate. Not every animation or enemy design reaches the same standard as the environments, and occasional construction imperfections can interrupt the illusion, but the world remains attractive enough to make exploration enjoyable in its own right. The audio contributes to this atmosphere through environmental ambience, with the wind and distant rumbling of harsher regions helping convey their isolation and hostility.
There is also considerable longevity here, particularly for players who enjoy working towards long-term goals. The main progression offers a steady stream of quests, equipment upgrades, new crafting opportunities and increasingly dangerous locations, while the expanded full-release content adds further territory and endgame challenges. The additional material surrounding the mysterious builders of Embervale gives dedicated explorers more reasons to investigate the world’s history, even if the narrative remains somewhat fragmented. Solo play is viable, particularly in the earlier regions, but co-operative multiplayer provides another appealing way to approach the adventure. With support for groups of up to 16 players, friends can divide their attention between exploration, combat, resource gathering and construction, making larger projects and dangerous expeditions feel more manageable. The freedom to focus on whichever activities are most appealing is one of the game’s most effective qualities. Nevertheless, the familiar gather-craft-upgrade loop can become repetitive over time, and the lack of a consistently compelling narrative means that players who need a strong story to maintain their interest may find their motivation waning once the novelty of exploration begins to fade.
At the end of the day, Enshrouded is a strong survival RPG whose greatest achievement is how naturally its different systems complement one another. The story and combat rarely reach the same heights as the world design and building tools, and repetitive resource collection, occasionally awkward menus and uneven encounters prevent the experience from feeling completely polished. Yet these shortcomings are balanced by a flexible progression system, rewarding exploration and a construction toolkit capable of keeping creative players occupied for a considerable time. Keen Games has turned the foundations established during Early Access into a substantial adventure with a clear identity: one that encourages players to venture into danger, bring useful survivors home and gradually build something of their own. The PlayStation 5 release brings that experience to console players, and for fans of fantasy adventures who value freedom, discovery and creative building at least as much as challenging combat or intricate storytelling, Enshrouded is well worth exploring.
Score: 8.2/10