Hi everyone following our early experience with the Palworld, we've had the opportunity to try out another survival construction game Enshrouded This time, we were joined by 14 audience members for an early experience. Survival building games are mine and Nana's favorite and the type we play the most. After experiencing the official EA version of Enshrouded, I feel it's the most enjoyable survival building game I've played so far, simply astonishing! To welcome the soon-to-arrive 14 Pals, ah, no, partners, I first built a temporary base to settle them in. Using the powerful preset blueprint mechanism, I quickly constructed warm and comfortable staff dormitories, and also built a temporary bedroom for me and Nana. Afterwards, the 14 staff members gradually arrived in my world. After gathering at the spawn point, we all set off for the base in a grand procession. Upon reaching the base, I assigned everyone their own rooms, and everyone was very satisfied. With that, our adventure in the Enshrouded officially began. BUILDING Even when playing the demo version, we recognized Enshrouded's strong building capabilities based on next-gen voxel technology. You can construct buildings of various shapes using fine voxel blocks, or even hollow out an entire mountain to create a large underground dungeon. After experiencing the complete EA official version, we realized that what we had encountered in building content was just the tip of the iceberg. The EA version offers not only a much wider variety of building materials than the demo, but also many more patterns and designs. Even if the company allocates you only a one-square-meter hut, you can secretly place a hidden door in the floor. It looks normal from the outside, but beneath the hidden door lies your own cozy little world. Even if you are only given a one-square-meter hut, you can use exquisite and luxurious building materials, combined with your aesthetic concept, to create a refined and luxurious single apartment. You can even build a flower bed with voxels behind it. If the company allocates you only a one-square-meter hut, you can opt for drastic excavations, hollowing out the earth beneath your house, engraving the boss’s name there, and constructing a large mausoleum underground as a gift to him. Just give everyone a ray of sunlight, and they will shine brilliantly. When we moved to the sky to start building our massive floating town, everyone truly blossomed, constructing various magnificent and fantastical structures with voxels. In the EA version, we saw a multitude of building materials that we had never seen before, with more than 20 types currently unlocked. Each material not only differs in appearance but also produces unique sounds when walked on Enshrouded's voxels have another incredible mechanism automatic fusion with surrounding voxels and adaptive appearance adjustment. Each material has its unique fusion method, corresponding to its style. The advanced building materials newly added in this EA version particularly showcase their unique aesthetic attributes. Even a simple addition of a beam can become a beautiful decorative touch. We had one staff member who specialized in this, and eventually, he invented a method to build Chinese-style rooftops using voxels. The main gate of our sky town, the South Heaven Gate, was his creation. Its rooftop style is also widely applied to other buildings nearby. In Enshrouded, seemingly natural, irregularly shaped terrains are also made of voxels. So, like buildings, you can meticulously sculpt the terrain or quickly generate or remove it using preset terrain blueprints. In this EA version, we discovered that even terrains have different materials, not just common stone, but also limestone, mud, glowing soil, etc. Previously, at our temporary base, while everyone was experimenting with various new building materials, one staff member quietly decorated his home with stone terrain. When you tirelessly explore a field and master it, you can create such miraculous landscapes. Besides voxels, in terms of construction, you can unlock various decorative home items, and the variety of decorations in Enshrouded is astonishing. These rich and characteristic decorations, combined with voxel construction, allow for a high degree of freedom in various interior decoration styles. Each decorative item also has a 'decorative value' attribute; the higher the total decorative value in a room, the stronger the rest BUFF you receive. Another commendable aspect of the decorations is that all items support free stacking. With this stacking function, ordinary people might think of stacking plates to create a natural ambiance or stacking windows to make a glass wall. But for those with an ultimate pursuit of aesthetics, plates should be used to build walls, pots to erect pillars, cups to create windows. If something is not provided in the game, they will assemble it themselves. To them, any placeable object can be excellent building material. Do you want to build a house using toilet seats? (I just wanted to use toilet bowls to cover the public restrooms...) Moreover, you can create many functional items. Although the game has no PVP, you can use bombs to bury your teammates underground, and with barrels of explosives, not only can you play various tricks, chained~~ but you can actually blow your teammates up. You dead? Why dead? You can place hooks all over the base to quickly cross ravines or reach rooftops, or to experience Spiderman-like movement. There are various styles of hidden doors, each with corresponding fake hidden doors, to predict your prediction. A battle of wits and bravery. With these various quirky items and the freedom of voxel construction, you can explore many fun playstyles, especially in multiplayer mode. For example, one of our staff built a huge maze with various hidden doors and invited friends to enjoy it together. Then let's go inside and give it a try hit the jackpot! You can also use these items for obstacle courses, alternative climbing competitions, and other sports. We will release related videos of our 16-person sports meet in the future, so stay tuned. How many on this side? How many people You are all doomed! And here here... I’m still alive~! in that direction Everyone in that direction is doomed! Although the building functions in Enshrouded are so rich and powerful, thanks to the development team’s considerate and convenient measures, building is quite easy. The game provides blueprints of various shapes and sizes. Objects built with blueprints can also be dismantled in blocks, without any loss of building materials. Whether it's building materials or decorative items, both free placement and alignment modes are offered. If you build or dismantle something incorrectly, you can press Y to undo multiple steps, just like Ctrl+Z. Even Nana can master the building mechanism and crazily build, creating a cyberpunk canyon landscape by herself and even building her own secret garden. Chinese style cyberpunk! Alright alright alright OK OK OK This meticulous and thoughtful convenience design runs through all aspects of the game, which makes us feel the development team is really dedicated to making this game. But it’s important to note that you can only build within the range of the Spirit Fire, and if you dismantle the Spirit Fire in a certain area, any parts not covered by the Spirit Fire will disappear after the server or host restarts. Be very careful about this. THE WORLD Even setting aside the voxel construction aspect, Enshrouded would still be an outstanding open-world survival game due to its rich content in world exploration and combat. The game world is vast, encompassing various areas like snowy mountains, dense forests, and deserts, all available for free exploration. During your adventures, you might witness wolves brutally hunting rabbits and encounter various mineral veins. The mines in Enshrouded blend naturally with the surrounding voxel environment, making them appear more authentic. Additionally, different minerals have varying hardness; for instance, clay can be mined much faster than copper ore. Mining also yields experience points. The game world is not randomly generated but is meticulously handcrafted, allowing players to encounter thoughtfully designed landscapes, town ruins, large structures. As you explore the world, you’ll continuously find little surprises. By paying close attention, you can discover hidden doors, secret spaces, and dungeon entrances leading to extra treasures. Sometimes, you might stumble upon various caves, which could be either mining sites or shortcuts through mountains. With the plethora of craftable items in the game, the various flowers and wild fruits you pick and the items you collect from ruins will often lead you to new recipes, which is a delightfu experience. You can move around by walking, gliding, using hooks, and other means. Of course, in this voxel-based world, you can also alter the terrain to create your own shortcuts. If you plan to dig with a pickaxe, it’s better to craft a good one, as different terrains have varying levels of hardness. Alternatively, you can use explosives for a more drastic approach, although it requires resources to craft. Or, you could adopt a ranger profession, using explosive arrows to precisely carve a path, acting as the pioneer of your team. Investing in specific skills to enhance gliding abilities or crafting more advanced and cool gliders can also improve your mobility. Similar to games like Zelda, ancient towers are scattered across various regions of the world. You need to navigate through various traps, solve puzzles, and find teleporters to the next level, ultimately reaching the top of the tower. An activated ancient tower not only reveals the surrounding area but also becomes a teleportation point. Towers near the spawn point might be less challenging, but those farther away gradually increase in difficulty in terms of traps and puzzles. Throughout the world, you will find various documents and notes, similar to the fragmented narrative style of Souls-like games, gradually unveiling the vast background world of Enshrouded. This is the game's meticulously crafted legacy system. The stories depicted in these notes are often dark and realistic, revealing poignant love stories, noble sacrifices, and the darkest moments of human nature in the face of disaster. Since the map is handcrafted, the contents of the notes are aptly themed with the surrounding environment, adding to the joy of exploration. Some notes are interconnected, revealing the locations of subsequent notes after you discover one providing exploration goals and allowing you to understand the complete storyline while earning corresponding rewards at the final location, such as the protagonist’s weapon or treasure chests. These notes are categorized into a deep and complex legacy system, powerfully supplementing the game's background. The system even explains the invention of the glider. Various NPCs lie dormant throughout the world, waiting for you to overcome obstacles to rescue them. This allows you to deploy these NPCs at your home, unlocking more recipes and facilities for use. Currently, there are five available NPCs: a blacksmith, an alchemist, a hunter, a carpenter, and a farmer, each with their own environmental comfort requirements. You can freely adjust the NPCs' locations at any time. Although they cannot walk, they will turn to face you when you approach and engage in conversation. Their role is not just as new workbenches; they also issue various quests, some telling the origin stories of the NPCs, and some requiring you to bring back specific tools for them, enabling the crafting of more items and facilities. As you bring back more NPC-specific tools, you can gradually fill their houses with more exclusive facilities. Outside of the fog-covered areas, you can teleport to your Spirit Fire location at any time without any item carrying restrictions, making it very convenient for exploration. All these elements I've mentioned - exploration, story, recipes, crafting, rewards - are intricately interconnected, influencing each other and forming a complete loop, providing an ultimate adventure experience. The game does not neglect other aspects despite voxel construction being its biggest selling point. On the contrary, its exploration and combat quality exceed that of other similar survival building games, even surpassing Valheim, which we played extensively for over a month. And this is why I believe it is currently the most enjoyable survival building game, not just the best building simulator. THE COMBAT The combat system in Enshrouded is also quite intriguing. The character's skill tree is divided into three main categories strength, agility, and magic - encompassing a total of 12 branches, allowing for free construction of your build. With limited skill points, you can either deeply specialize in one branch, consider combinations between adjacent branches, or just randomly allocate points in a unique way. For example, in this scenario, if you are a Beast Tamer, these wolves will not attack you. If you are a highly skilled Beast Tamer, the wolves might even help you attack enemies, making you the brightest star in the area. Resetting skill points only costs a small amount of resources, so you can freely experiment with various build combinations. There are various weapons and equipment in the game. Some can be obtained during adventures, and others can be crafted at different NPCs, provided you have unlocked the relevant recipes. Weapons are categorized into five qualities: white, green, blue, purple, and yellow. Higher quality weapons unlock more additional properties, Some high-end weapons with cool, glowing appearances can even illuminate your surroundings at night. The details are very well executed. Characters have a comprehensive attribute panel. Melee weapons are further categorized into slashing, piercing, and other attack types. Additionally, you can use wands, staves, bows, and various weapons. Since each weapon has different effects and fighting monsters consumes weapon durability, it's best to carry multiple weapons when adventuring. When you go out, it's still better to carry more equipment with you. Pfft! Carrying a bunch of weapons, like a student with too many stationeries! Conveniently, interacting with a workbench automatically repairs these weapons without consuming materials. The game’s combat difficulty is moderate. Like you, monsters can block and ranged monsters try to maintain distance. Some monsters use physical attacks while others use magical attacks. You’ll occasionally encounter elite monsters, so during combat, you need to make use of basic skills like rolling, dodging, shield countering, and manage your stamina wisely. The game also provides a locking feature to keep monsters in sight and an auto-aim mode, but auto-aiming means you can't target weak points or lead your shots, so use it wisely according to the situation. Although the balance between different weapons and skill branches still needs some polishing, this should improve after the game's release as more player data is collected. By the standards of survival building games, the combat in Enshrouded is quite commendable. MULTIPLAYER The game supports up to 16 players online. Besides the P2P connection mode where players host the game, it also supports third-party professional server hosting, keeping the game world active 24/7. This is especially useful for growing time-consuming plants and trees. Our sky town was built on a GPortal professional server. We plan to open it to our community at an appropriate time for everyone to visit and play. Enemies strength increases with the number of connected players. So, charging in with a large group might lead to a wipeout. It's better to maintain formation let ranged players attack from a distance, tanks take the front line, and those who can slack off, slack off. Bosses might become harder with more players, but larger groups can work faster and use various clever methods to defeat bosses. Let's first see how the boss reacts. It fell down! What will it do? Come on down~ Pal? Throw the ball Additionally, the number of items dropped by monsters or found in chests also increases with the number of players, which is a great feature. At night, you can speed up the passage of time by lying in bed, with a maximum acceleration of 60 times. In multiplayer, the acceleration is shared among players. For instance, if six players are connected and only one is in bed, the night passes 10 times faster. It's a unique design. In multiplayer although there is no friendly fire, characters don’t phase through each other, so collisions and accidents are more common than expected, especially in certain situations. Move aside, Move aside, No.. the thing above... the thing above... Let me handle this... you get down you get down, I can't stand up there 此外還有各種針對 There are also various convenience features for multiplayer, such as item gifting and a more intuitive UI than in the demo, making it very useful for distributing items among players. Organizing items in chests with stack insertions, stack retrievals, full insertions, full retrievals, organizing backpacks, and chests are all comprehensive features. They can be assigned hotkeys, making them very convenient. In conclusion, I believe Enshrouded is a milestone masterpiece in survival building games. Its voxel-based construction is undoubtedly powerful, reaching a unique point in construction gameplay. However, what truly makes it enjoyable are the underlying gameplay mechanics, thanks to the development team’s profound design expertise and various convenient measures from a player's perspective. Of course, there are areas for improvement, like the inability to sit on chairs and occasional bugs, but the development team highly values player feedback, which I think is most important. So, although it was released in early 2024, it might become the best survival building game dark hourse again? of the entire year. No, the best survival building game. It’s not a dark hourse. Because we've already introduced it many times before, right? I feel like it winning the 'Best Survival Building Game' would be expected, if it does win. Alright, that's all for today's video. Thank you for watching, and see you in our next video.
