Enshrouded - PS5 Review

Enshrouded by developer and publisher Keen Games—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes.

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Having spent the last two years in Early Access, Keen Games' next epic has recently launched into version 1.0! And having already spent 146 hours in Early Access through Steam, I was nothing short of excited to start from scratch on the PS5.

Here is my 50+ hour journey so far.

Taking it from the top, Enshrouded is an action adventure RPG semi sandboxed open world… adventure. Adventure for the style and adventure as the journey. You are a flameborne tasked with going out into the world to help keep a dwindling flame alive. 

The task is not an easy one. Starting with nothing, you'll have to build everything. Your equipment, your home or your base, and your support network of NPC allies. Your support network will consist of a Smith, Alchemist, Hunter, Farmer, and several others. But you don't have to build it all at once, or even alone. 

What I really appreciate about Enshrouded is that you can take the adventure at your own pace. You want to explore? Craft? Build? It's up to you. There are no time limits on anything. There's also never anything stopping you from coming back to something later. For players like me, I split my time between pure adventuring to push further into the world, spending time gathering certain sets of materials that I know I'll need, and finally, hours building up my base and home because Enshrouded has one of the best systems that I've ever sat down to.

The reason that I say that Enshrouded is one of the best building systems that I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience, is because it scales very well. Whether you’re building large structures, or working on minute details, it's responsive and easy to use. You can build in third person, first person, or, if you unlock the skill available from the beginning, you can build freeform as a floating wisp. This changed everything as you no longer had to be within a certain distance of what you wanted to tweak, you could simply float up to the rafters and set new chandeliers in place.

There are two catches however. The first, and the most important, is that you can only build within the protection of the flame. This requires the simple act of putting down a flame altar. If removed, the space will in a short time revert to how it once was, so you have to be a bit careful there. The next, is the only thing I have notes on. There are currently no dedicated tools to remove existing structures. You can affect the ground, but not the buildings. Being that it’s a lot easier in the beginning to set up shop in something already existing, it makes significant renovations a bit of a chore as you can only remove small blocks at a time.

Otherwise, the only real limit to your imagination is how far you’ve explored and which materials that you’ve uncovered. To do this, is where Enshrounded hides its darker and more sinister side. While there is the option to edit your game world to make it easier, or harder, even the normal basic configurations can be tough if you’re not prepared. 

Almost everything in Enshrouded's wants to either kill you or eat you. The only things that don’t? Are running away from you as they are generally some kind of food that you’ll be making once you’ve hunted them down. Split into major factions, you’ll have to worry about the human-like Scavengers, the Ursine Vukah tribes, and then the creatures of the Shroud. Yes there are others, but they are much further down the line and these are scary enough for the sake of this review!

Interestingly enough, you’ll need to fight just about everyone, or everything, at some point if you want to move further into the world in front of you. While the world at large plays host to various building and crafting materials, so do the various enemies. It’s not simply a case of needing better gear, which is always a factor. It’s also a case that some of these materials are only being dropped by these enemies which are required to enhance the core flame allowing you to push further through the Shroud.

Enshrouded isn’t simply the title of the game, it’s a status effect and a result of walking, running, or gliding down into the Shroud. The stronger your flame, or the better your gear is with its own enhancements, the longer you can explore the Shroud. Yes, I lied, there IS a time limit to certain actions. If you stay in the Shroud too long, you’ll die. If you wander into the thicker areas known as the Deadly Shroud, you’ll die even faster. You’ll need to keep a close watch on your timer or know where the fastest ways out are.

The Shroud is spooky. The air is thick with mist, and until your flame becomes more powerful, the mist itself feels thicker and harder to see through. This allows things to simply lay in wait until you’re not paying attention. The sound is also muffled, adding to that air of creepiness when exploring the lower reaches of the world. “Do I need to?” you may ask, yes, you do, as the Shroud will often be between you and a new location that you want to explore. Taking to the skies can often shorten how much ground time you have, or some creative pathfinding, but at one point, you’ll have no choice as you’ll need something that only the Shroud can provide you.

Which leads into how you’ll tackle the threats ahead. Enshrouded offers players a flexible progression system. You can specialize as a Warrior, Ranger, or Wizard type. As you level up, you’ll receive skill points that can be used as a spiderweb like skill tree. While the basic class-like flavours are present, you can mix, max, and as you look through the web, you’ll notice that there are subclasses listed in the background to give you an idea of where this portion of the web is designed to take you. 

You can be a tank, you can be a glass cannon, you can be whatever you want to be. Playing solo on the PS5, I’ve designed my character to be able to tackle anything that comes their way. One-handed melee weapon and a shield for regular combat, a bow for long range combat, and a few elemental wands for close ranged magic combat against enemies resistant to my melee weapons. If something doesn’t work out, you can always fully reset your skill list, or, reset a few points here and there as needed with a bit of ingame Shroud currency.

When it comes to combat as a whole, it can feel a bit simplistic at times unless you unlock some abilities. You'll generally only be able to dodge, block, or attack, but in the heat of the moment, sometimes it's nice to only have to worry about three mechanics when it's one versus ten or more. This is where some of the non combat skills come in like various protective or healing auras. 

Even playing solo though, you’re never alone as there are a host of NPCs there to help, and to continuously provide quests which push you ever forward. The Smith for example will begin your crafting into metal works. The Alchemist will provide you with potions for healing and resistances. The Hunter will provide you with various new ammo types to fight from a far. But then you have others like the Farmer who will help you get into husbandry and farming. The better the food that you eat, the better buffs that you’ll have until they wear out.

But there are others too which will aid you in different ways. There’s a Craftsperson that will help you make the place look pretty and craft new storage options for your base. There’s a Bard that will let you update your look. New options for hair and eye colour become as you find them in your adventures. Finally, there are a few other NPCs that offer different functions if you seek them out. I’m not giving everything away!

Other than the time limit while in the Shroud, how you decide to move forward is up to you, and there are no time limits there. You can rush, you can take your time. You can play solo, you can play co-op. You can co-op by opening up your own game, keeping it private for friends, or hosting a dedicated server so that your own machine only needs to worry about you. There are a lot of options, and there is a lot that can be done.

Keen Games continues to impress. From the more family friendly Portal Knights years ago to the much more mature Enshrouded, they remain open to players feedback without compromising what they set out to do. As a result, Enshrouded’s 1.0 launch is a stellar experience easily allowing for fans of various genres to come together to experience new adventures and uncover hidden secrets.

Score: 9 / 10