Enshrouded Early Access Review - Why I'm already hooked!

good day everyone ens shrouded is a new open world survival game that released this week and I'll tell you right now I haven't been this hooked on a survival game since valheim released Keen gam Studio have done a fantastic job of melding elements of survival crafting games like valheim with Souls like combat and action RPG gameplay like Elder ring or Skyrim and they've given us what already feels like a really full and refined game you'd barely realize it's an early access at all and for its very reasonable cost to give it to you straight I absolutely recommend trying this game I've been completely hooked on it for the past week and had an absolute heap of fun exploring the game's Incredible World the game is set in the realm of Ember Veil a gorgeous landscape that's been plagued by a fungal shroud which we get to explore as one of the mysterious Flame born after waking up in a cinder vault at the start of the game the world is made up of a number of different biomes like many of these survival games are you start in the Rolling Hills of the springlands progressing into Ravel wood a denser Forest terrain and onward into desert regions of of The Nomad Highlands and mountainous Kindle wases as you'd expect each biome brings new resources new materials and new enemies to fight the world itself is quite massive I've actively explored for 50 hours already and I've barely touched the last biome available in Early Access and even the Early Access is only probably a third of the size of the map so I'm really excited to see how they feel the rest of it the world is handcrafted rather than presely generated which initially I was disappointed in but after exploring for only a few hours the detail was already impressing me everywhere you go you stumble across remnants of humanity ruined Villages camps Crypts temples old forts that have broken down ancient obelisks or intricate mind systems under the mountains of course in all of these explorable areas you'll come across different enemies resources materials and loot chests that often reward rare weapons trinkets or armor it's one of those games where you can't help yourself but explore every nook and cranny of the world I think the game has really nailed the sense of exploration and Discovery as one of the strongest aspects of the game of note I think the game uses verticality really well to enhance the feeling of being in a vast World gliding from towering spires scaling mountains or falling through the ground into a massive underground shroud well the voxal based design of the game really enhances the freedom of exploration because there's no set way to get anywhere as you can literally dig your way through the terrain or blow holes in the wall with explosives if you want to at one point I got stuck and literally dug my way back out vertically through the side of a mountain which is really cool and Incredibly despite such a massive open world it hasn't for a moment felt honorous getting around movement feels really fluid and fast thanks to the various tools the game offers you such as grappling hooks and the glider especially it's genuinely fun moving throughout the world which is a really big positive you'll encounter a bunch of platforming style puzzles and between the grappling gliding climbing and jumping they feel really smooth and not at all clunky even just your run speed and size of your jump makes for easy movement around the world like look at this jump this guy does not Skip Leg Day the game has a simple fast travel system to any of your flame Alters which are just your bases with no limitation or resource cost although you only have a limited number of flame Alters that you can make which does progress throughout the game the only other thing you can fast travel to is these massive spires around the world which act as a kind of travel Hub once you reach the top of the Spire which usually involves getting through a platform in puzzle the map will place a bunch of areas of interest in the towers region and then you can repeatedly fast travel to the top of the tower to Glide down to different objectives and cover huge distances without much hassle again for such a big world I'm genuinely surprised by how enjoyable they've made exploring it the Shroud is one of the core and distinguishing gameplay mechanics of enshrouded unsurprisingly giving the game its name throughout the world are patches of this strange fungal shroud that's responsible for the fall of humanity and the post-apocalyptic world that we find ourselves in the Shroud is dark dark ominous full of infected creatures and as The Flame born we are uniquely able to delve into the Shroud for limited amounts of time at once every time you enter the Shroud you get a timer bar at the top of your screen and if that time expires you die it starts at the Baseline 5 minutes but as you progress you can increase the timer and to add another layer to it you can't fast travel from inside the Shroud and it's pretty easy to get caught too far in and no time left to get out so you definitely get that sense of Survival game danger whilst in the CR I'm actually not a massive fan of the timer system because I prefer to take my time and explore every inch of the world in these kinds of games although you do sometimes find these shroud routs in the furthest depths which you can destroy to alleviate some of the fog allowing you to explore more freely in some areas either way the game puts a bunch of objectives like more skill points or Quest items down in the Shroud to compel you down into it you definitely get that sense of urgency and danger though so I guess it's doing its job especially when other parts of the game aren't as punishing as we've grown to expect from Survival Games overall still a cool theme and an interesting design in terms of story it's fairly light on the storytelling is almost exclusively done through these notes that you find all throughout the world which give little Snippets of information so it's much more indirect storytelling something similar to Elder ring where you can play the whole game and not know what's going on or if you pay attention you'll slowly piece together some of the history of the Shroud what happened to the last survivors of humanity and some more context about this whole Flame born thing even then though it's fairly basic but I've enjoyed reading all the notes and I really appreciate that the game files them all into a nice little compendium for you what is good about the notes is that they often trigger quests objectives or subsequent points of interest so it's always worth clicking on them to help guide your exploration now moving on to combat and skills and this is where we really see a mishmash of souls like combat with classic action RPG skill trees the combat consists of all the expected elements you might be familiar with from Souls like combat you can block Parry Dodge roll and of course swing your weapon light and heavy weapons have different animations move move sets and Tempo and the game also completely Embraces magic uses offering a wand as a spammable basic attack equivalent and staffs which consume Mana for more potent magic abilities in terms of how the combat feels well I'd place it somewhere between valheim and Elden ring if you're familiar with those it's definitely more refined than valheim movement is smooth the attack animations are fluid the hitbox reception is good blocking is effective and the Parry timing seems fairly intuitive and generous overall it's pretty SA fine combat I'm not going to lie but it's not quite at Elden ring level yet there's limited Variety in weapon move sets there's no light and heavy attack so you pretty much use the same one two three combo on repeat and there's not a huge Variety in enemy types so you get familiar with their attacks pretty quickly where it gets really fun though is introducing the skill tree into the mix and this would look familiar to many fantasy action RPG skill trees you're probably used to you've got the small nodes which are just stats passively increasing various combat stats be it damage type health or stamina the middle nodes offer damage modifiers various non-combat passives and a few combat interactions and finally the big nodes offer your strongest build defining abilities some active combat abilities lots of strong passives like attacking faster with certain weapons or procing multi-shot with bows and even a few non-combat enhancements such as the ability to double jump which is really good or gain an additional food slot which indirectly leads to more stats from food as you can see these are broadly grouped into melee ranged or Magic sections and within that various class archetypes so there is lots of opportunity to mix and match combinations or fully build into a specific class fantasy which always adds another layer of build crafting fun these don't completely change the combat but you will get a few abilities like an execute when you overpower their stagger bar or a powerful attack leap out of your Dodge roll which adds a little more opportunity for skill expression one of my favorite things that I haven't really seen before is that there's a dedicated ranged weapon selection and key binding for example you can set a bow as your dedicated ranged weapon and then you have a specific key binding that regardless of what weapon you have out at the time will draw and shoot your dedicated bow I found this a really effective way to enable you to weave between melee and ranged combat really fluidly and it was a lot of fun overall I've been really happy with the combat and as always aiming towards power ups and combos in the skill tree is always a fun element of game play moving on to building and crafting which are the last main systems I want to talk about the building in and shrouded consists of all the standard elements you'd expect from one of these games you've got a number of modular build pieces including foundations walls roofs pillars and stairs which you can throw together however you please and your imagination is basically the limit of course you've got various types of materials you can use which you'll gather all around the world and as you progress through the biomes you'll unlock more types of the same core material new ores and minerals new Woods new plants and f as you get the idea the building interface itself is easy enough to use just slap all your material blocks that you've crafted at the workstation into your inventory and then you can access and select all the different permutations through the hammer tool and finally the crafting system you've got the simple crafting options available right from the start of the game which is the stuff you can craft from anywhere this is all your basic arrows bandages string just the basic field supplies and then pretty early in the game you'll make a workbench which opens up all the building blocks so you can start building with a hammer and various other items like the most basic tools and equipment crafting really kicks off when the game directs you to its core crafting system which is 5 NPCs that you progressively unlock by rescuing them from vaults around the world each NPC has a particular skill set and once rescued you can summon to your base where they act as a crafting vendor granting access to recipes directly through them or the ability to make other equipment that in turn refines your materials into new things the first you get is the blacksmith who specializes in weapons and armor and allows you to make the Kiln and smelters to refine ore The Alchemist is next who has recipes for various potions Magic items and allows you to make a few different grinding machines to refine various monster Parts like bones or chitten and then you kind of get them in whatever order you choose there's the hunter who makes all the different types of bags arrows hide based armor equipment and allows you to dry hide into refined Leathers the carpenter gives access to storage chests various Comfort items and allows you to refine wood and Clay into more advanced mid building materials and finally the farmer who serves as your cooking specialist unlocking more complex food recipes the food system works very similar to valheim where you have three food slots and each different type of food gives you different stats which increases your survivability or combat power in various ways so unlocking better food Buffs is integral to your gameplay the farmer also allows you to make seed beds so that you can produce seeds from different plants and vegetables you find and then replant them so you can start to develop self-sustaining crops the way the crafting system progresses is via quests that the NPCs give you at your base which usually consist of a string string of objectives that lead to a specific piece of equipment they need to advance their trade for example the blacksmith sends you off to find his lost Crucible so that we can make a smelter or the hunter sends us off to find a tarning rack for making leather and of course as the game progresses all the different crafting recipes and refined materials will mix and match so that you need to progress all of them together to get the most out of them all in all the progress of the crafting system felt pretty natural and satisfying I enjoyed each time I'd return to my base to find a new Quest knowing that I'd be able to upgrade my bag space or make better armor and in games where there's so much focus on freedom of exploration it's nice to have objectives with tangible rewards handed to you every now and then to mix it up so overall I really can't fault the game too much sure it has some minor issues to address but for a relatively cheap Early Access game it has certainly far surpass my expectations so much that I could barely pull myself away from playing it to make this video at the end of the day I've had an absolute blast playing the game I'm Keen to play more I'm Keen to track how it develops through Early Access and I would definitely recommend anyone to give it a try thanks for listening everyone cheers

Channel: Wilstorm Gaming

Views: 2,808

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Id: oz--l4i0UYQ

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2024