It’s been a while since we dived into the world of Enshrouded here at Virtualni Kutak. All the way back in late January 2024, we checked out the launch of the early access and had a great time with the beginnings of the game. Now over two and a half years later on October 15th, Enshrouded finally launches into version 1.0, not only on PC, but also on PlayStation 5.
At its core, Enshrouded is a fantasy survival action RPG built around a simple premise. You awaken as one of the Flameborn, explore the fallen kingdom of Embervale and reclaim a vast land consumed by a mysterious, corrupting fog known as the Shroud. Developed by Keen Games, the game combines, exploration crafting, challenging combat, resource gathering and an extensive building system into a single grand adventure. Its greatest strength is how all these systems naturally feed into one another.
A Kingdom Worth Saving: The World of Emberale
Embervale is more than a convenient backdrop for collecting resources. Its ruined settlements, abandoned structures, dangerous valleys and overgrown landscapes invite players explore what remains of a once-thriving civilization. Exploration regularly leads to new crafting materials, rare equipment, hard enemies and remnants of the world’s history. Even a small unimportant detour can reveal something useful and exciting for the next expedition. Especially the lore you find in the game is a true highlight, since all texts are fully voiced and I found myself venturing out into the world, while listening to entries of old books and experiences of forgotten people.
The Shroud gives this exploration a whole other layer full of danger. Venturing into the corrupted territory means dealing with hostile creatures and managing the limitations associated with the remaining fog. Rather than marking dangerous locations on the map, the environment becomes part of the challenge. Players must decide how far to push forward, when to search for resources, treasures and other things in the Shroud or return back to safety while the timer slowly runs down.
Traversal makes the experience considerably more enjoyable. Gliding, climbing and other movement abilities help turn the landscape into something that can be navigated based on player choice instead of merely crossed on foot. Height becomes a tactical consideration, with cliffs, ruins and elevated routes opening different possibilities for reaching destinations. When you craft your first cheap hook, you immediately feel how the world opens up to you, but once you venture into the first of many central towers of Embervale with a glider and just look around from the top into the vastness of the world, it is an incredible feeling only a few games let you feel. The first time I was standing there, it almost felt like the first time in Breath of the Wild. You see it? You can go there. Or rather glide, which I did and ended up in some high-level area, full of deadly new enemies. It almost felt like a gauntlet to make it out there, but not without grabbing some new materials I haven’t seen in the last 10 hours of playing the game and some cool new armor piece that was a fundamental upgrade.
The world is also designed around gradual discovery rather than presenting everything at once. New regions provide stronger opponents, more valuable resources and additional reasons to revisit crafting stations and reconsider equipment. This creates a satisfying loop. Exploration supplies the materials needed for progression, while improved equipment allows player to venture into more dangerous territory and deal with the challenges.
However, the indirect way the story unfolds can sometimes make the narrative feel less immediate than the adventure surrounding it. Environmental storytelling creates atmosphere, but players who prefer a tightly directed campaign may find themselves more motivated by the next upgrade or unexplored landmark than by the central mystery.
Survival, Crafting and the Freedom to Build
Where Enshrouded distinguishes itself from many survival games is in its approach to construction. Its voxel-based terrain system allows players to reshape sections of the environment, excavate spaces, create foundations and build structures that fit their individual vision. The building system is not simply a way to place a shelter and move on. It is one of the games major features.
A modest refuge can eventually become an elaborate settlement, imposing fortress or a sprawling fantasy residence. The player’s imagination is the limit. The flexibility of the building tools encourages experimentation, while the surrounding landscape provides opportunities to incorporate natural features into a construction. Why spending time on a big farm, if you can buy your next base in an old, abandoned city ruin that comes with it? You want to a desert castle with an oasis? Find a place in the desert and settle there. Players who enjoy spending hours on architectural projects may find that building becomes just as compelling as combat and exploration.
The settlement also has a practical purpose. Rescued survivors, you find all over the world, unlock specialized crafting opportunities and help establish a more developed base of operations. Returning from an expedition with new materials can therefore lead to several meaningful things, improve equipment, expand a building, get new quests, prepare useful supplies or invest in another stage of progression.
This creates an appealing rhythm between adventure and domestic creativity. An expedition might begin with the goal of finding a particular resource, turn into a dangerous encounter with enemies and end with the discovery of an entirely new building material. Returning home then provides a natural pause in which to use those discoveries.
There is always the risk that crafting and resource gathering can become too repetitive. I am not the biggest crafting fan myself, when it comes to survival games, but it never bothered me in Enshrouded. Large constructions of course still require considerable quantities of materials and progression sometimes involves revisiting familiar locations to gather more supplies, but Enshrouded finds a good balance between the two extremes.
And for the crafting enthusiasts, Enshrouded offers the amazing Adventure Sharing system, where you can share your impressive builds with other players and create exciting adventures for them. Especially with the newly introduced Sparkworks system, that gets introduced with 1.0. A system similar to Minecraft’s Redstone system, where you can interconnect different objects of your current creation and build in features, such as spikes, jumping pads, or combat challenges and let different objectives interact with one another.
Combat: A Solid Foundation with Room to Grow
Combat in Enshrouded combines melee weapons, bows, magical attacks, defence abilities, dodging and equipment-dependent character builds. Different approaches give players reasons to experiment rather commit permanently to one style. A warrior can concentrate on close-range damage and survivability, while an archer or mage can approach encounters with different balance of range, mobility and resource management.
Combat was always one of the gameplay elements, that got a lot of feedback in Enshrouded and so during 2026, Keen Games focused a lot to improve and rework most combat styles and systems. Combat now includes heavy attacks for melee weapons, new special abilities powered by Focus and revised weapon attack chains, expanded enemy awareness and a significant rework of the skill tree. Equipment upgrades for armor, shields, wards and rings were also introduced.
And with 1.0 Magic gets some new love as well, with additional spells and summons. Magic also receives improvements beyond the new spells. Eternal spells can be upgrades and given perks, while spell costs and casting times are being adjusted to better reflect their power and usefulness. Wands are receiving heavy attacks that pierce enemies, as well as new aerial and evasive attacks.
Archers are also receiving new skills and new eternal arrow types, expanding the options for players who prefer ranged combat. New aim-assist settings are designed to improve accessibility for different control preferences as well. A welcoming addition, given the console release.
Sparkworks: A long-term foundation for ideas
As mentioned earlier in the review, Sparkworks is definitely one of the biggest highlights of 1.0. It could potentially have the biggest long-term impact on the community itself. The system allows players to connect inputs such as levers and pressure plates to outcomes such as opening doors or activating traps or activate challenge rooms, in which you must kill a certain number of enemies in a limited amount of time. In practical terms, it gives builders tools to make their creations interactive instead of purely decorative.
Imagine constructing a ruined temple that challenges visitor to uncover a hidden route, a castle with secret passages or a dungeon in which stepping on the wrong plate springs a trap. These examples illustrate just a bit of the potential of the system.
Combined with Adventure Sharing V2, which lets you upload and browse player-created worlds, this is the foundation of an incredible potential of player creativity and lets them share even more ambitious ideas. Interactive elements, puzzles, dungeon crawling hellholes, full of enemies and traps. I am more than excited to see with what the community will come up with during the next couple of weeks after launch and what exciting builds we will see in the Adventure Sharing system.
The development of these tools is particularly encouraging for the longevity of Enshrouded. Even after players have explored the new biome and collected the strongest equipment, the community could continue producing experiences worth visiting.
Hopefully Keen Games will expand the system based on community feedback and expand on current limitations, to let the community go crazy on it.
Multiplayer: You are Not Alone
At release Enshrouded supports cooperative adventures for up to 16 players, creating plenty of opportunities for groups to divide responsibilities. Some players can focus on combat and exploration, while others concentrate on gathering materials, crafting or constructing the base of operations.
And during our time with the game, it felt just right to play the game with friends. You friends can join with their own character, which has their own level, equipment and experience. So, an overpowered friend could help you fighting one of the bosses or explore a challenging area. Or a stacked-up builder friend, could come and help you build your own paradise.
My favorite part of playing in multiplayer was venturing out into the world with friends to explore new areas and barely survive the Shroud in some areas. It was always a good and a bad idea at the same time to just mark a spot on the map and dive there from one of the towers. Most of the time we ended up with cool new things but barely made it.
Unfortunately, there is no crossplay between PC and PlayStation 5 at launch, however the developers promise to implement it in an update sometime after launch.
Final Verdict:
Enshrouded stands out because it does not treat survival, action combat, exploration and construction as sperate attractions. Each system strengthens the other. Exploration supplies resources, crafting improves equipment, equipment increases the survivability in new and more dangerous areas and building gives players a home to return to between adventures.
Enshrouded 1.0 reinforces the formula that Keen Games refined over the course of 2026. A new high-level biome, tougher enemy variants, additional magic, higher progression caps and combat refinements offer more reasons to keep exploring. Sparkworks and Adventure Sharing V2 are exciting new features because they will extend the game’s lifespan beyond its main progression.
We would like to thank Keen Games for providing us with a copy of the game for review purposes.
Enshrouded (PlayStation 5)
With an already strong foundation, Keen Games managed to shape Enshrouded for its 1.0 launch version, into an exciting Survival Action RPG. The mysterious world of Embervaleinvites the players establish their base of operations and venture into and fight their way through the mysterious Shroud and beyond it.
