Keen Games are an indie videogame development studio hailing from Frankfurt, Germany, their team has many years of experience developing games for mobile phones, consoles and PC, you most likely know them from their critically acclaimed hit Portal Knights. Enshrouded is the title of Keen Games next project and ever since gamers got their hands on the demo making it the most played game during the Steam Next Fest a steady rumble of hype has been building up in anticipation of the games release, thanks to Keen Games we were lucky enough to get our hands on a copy of the full game and put It through its paces.

Enshrouded is a survival action role-playing game set in the realm of Embervale where due to your ancestor’s lust for great magical power they unleashed a pestilence that consumed the world. It is in this world you awake and start your journey to ignite the ancient power of the flame and piece together the fragments of a story that unfolds beneath the surface.

Like most survival games Enshrouded starts off with a tutorial teaching you the basic mechanics of fighting and base building by setting you tasks to collect various resources to create workbenches which will enable you to create tools and weapons that will help make your heroic journey of cleansing Embervale of the deadly shroud that envelops it. Enshrouded has a unique hook though, in order to expand your collection of crafting recipes you will need to head out far from home and travel the map so you can rescue and recruit various NPCs such as the hunter and alchemist who will then reward you with the ability to make new crafting stations and more powerful weapons, tools and potions. You will also need to build them dwellings to live in and areas for the various tools they require such as kilns, drying racks and furnaces. If you decide to move and build in a different part of the map, then you can simply summon them to your new location with your handy summoning staff. It’s a unique touch that really helps to make you feel like you are building a village rather than just a place for yourself to live. Speaking of crafting, you can also craft a grappling hook and a glider to help you explore the map, it is even more fun than it sounds, jumping off a massive cliff and gliding across the landscape to your destination really opens your eyes to just how massive the world of Enshrouded is. Food and drink also play a massive part in Enshrouded but not in the usual way you would expect in a survival game, instead of having a hunger and thirst meter that you must constantly replenish you instead use food and drinks for buffs to strength, stamina and dexterity amongst other things which makes it vital to ensure you have the correct buffs applied before you set out on an adventure to the more dangerous parts of the map.

There are enemies littered all over Embervale and you will have all manner of tools at your disposal to dispose of them, from swords and maces all the way through to bows, wands and staffs, both ranged and melee combat are simple in essence but also feel great to take part in, you also have a rather large skill tree that you can use to customise your character to the type of playstyle you prefer, you can be anything from a pure archer through to a sword wielding magic user depending on which skills you choose. Enemies aren’t the only thing actively trying to kill you in Enshrouded though, parts of the map are covered in ‘the shroud’ a toxic fog-like substance that harms anybody that wanders into it, when you enter the shroud a timer will start counting down at the top of the screen that warns you how much time you have left before you must get out of the shroud, once that counts down to zero then you cease to exist, you can extend your time in the shroud by reaching certain landmarks which will reset your timer or by using potions. The whole shroud mechanic is a work of genius that adds tension to exploring the map, I had several instances where I chose to stay and explore longer than I should and breathed a massive sigh of relief as I sprinted out of the deadly shroud into the sunshine with only seconds to spare, it’s these type of moments that keep you engaged in the world of Embervale and the game as a whole.

Embervale is a master class in world design, standing on the edge of a cliff and surveying the landscape through the holes in the shroud then seeing a point of interest miles into the distance and saying to yourself “I can actually go there” as you start off on another journey of exploration is an incredible feeling, as is exploring all the abandoned ruins and towers that litter the landscape. The map is absolutely massive and not only encourages exploration but it also rewards you for it, if you put in the time to investigate every nook and cranny then you will find chests that can contain anything from much needed resources through to epic weapons that will help you go stronger. The game is quite beautiful for the most part, with gigantic towers, old ruins, sweeping plains and valleys full of the fog-like shroud making up most of the world, Embervale is mysterious, beautiful and dangerous all at the same time. Unlike most games with survival aspects, Enshrouded does have a story, it is told mostly through text at the beginning and conclusion of quests and through various notes and books you will come across in your travels that help you get a better understanding of the lore behind the game and also mark key locations on the map for you to visit, if you are expecting flashy cut scenes then you will most likely end up disappointed, in my opinion though, the low key and unobtrusive story telling works perfectly for this type of game.

It is not all sunshine and rainbows where Enshrouded is concerned though, there are some nasty bugs and optimisation issues that pop up during gameplay, there are lots of frame rate issues during gameplay with some of the worst being during the transition from day to night time which brings the frame rate down into single digits, thankfully the transition only last for a minute or two so it is more annoying than game breaking. I also had a nasty bug that only seemed to affect me and not the friends I was playing with where it was impossible for me to exit out of the game even after trying to kill the process via task manager, this happened every time I try to exit the game and the only solution was to reboot my system on each occasion, I did report this bug to the devs but didn’t get a reply. People I were playing with also experienced a lot of random crashes during gameplay whereas I didn’t experience a single one so there is obviously an issue where certain types of hardware don’t play nice with the game, the game is Early Access though so some of these things can be forgiven and the devs were being really proactive with patching the game heading up to the launch, there wasn’t a day that went by during the week I have been playing that went by without a patch which is a really encouraging sign for the future stability and optimisation of the game.

Enshrouded is a game for people who like to immerse themselves into the world of a game and explore, not only will you be rewarded for your exploration with new items, new crafting recipes and weapons you will also be rewarded with snippets of lore that help you further understand the history of Embervale. I have been absolutely fiending to play this game ever since the playtest during Next Fest and I am happy to say that even though it can be a little rough around the edges Enshrouded is an absolute joy to play whether you are going at it solo or with a bunch of friends. The size of the map, the vast array of crafting recipes and the games building system, that even allows you to dig and build underground, are all top notch, the only thing that really needs work apart from optimisation is the combat system, while it is far from terrible it does feel quite floaty and lacks feedback and oomph on successful hits, I found the ranged combat to be far more satisfying than melee, hopefully the combat can be improved over time. I highly recommend Enshrouded to anybody that likes survival or RPG games, the map is massive, there is so much to explore and so much to build that I can ensure that you will spend a great number of hours playing this game. I am really looking forward to seeing how the game develops during the early access period, Enshrouded is an example of early access done right and I hope it receives the support it deserves.

If you want to pick the game up for yourself and join the fun, you can do so below.