Enshrouded should have been noticed

enshrouded is absurdly ambitious and we don't deserve it well I mean we do but it made for a really catchy title so that's what I went with look there's been so many great games that have come out in 2024 already that well it's been stealing away my attention and making it rather difficult for me to get back to making an overview or review for enshrouded like I am today however with their recent patch and a massive one at that it made for a really good opportunity for me to make more people aware of this game and how special it is more special than I think a lot of people realize this game is displaying much of the exact same ambition and ethic that I saw from laran Studios during their Early Access leading up to the release of balers Gate 3 and if this game continues on this path we have a monster of a game headed our way they're adding instanced dungeons into the game like it's an MMO what even is this game if you haven't played it enshrouded is an action adventure survival BuildCraft RPG currently in Early Access developed and published by Keen games the game offers a blend of survival crafting and action RPG combat set within a sprawling voxel-based world we navigate through the open world environments ranging from hills mountains forests caves and the forboding Shroud as we travel this sprawling world we seek to restore the power of the ancient flame and uncover the story that unfolds beneath the surface now unfortunately for in shrouded the game released into Early Access right alongside inside pow world and as both games dwell within a similar genre enshrouded took the back seat while po world became one of the fastest selling games in Steam history as well as well one of the most played third-party titles in Xbox history you could say it was enshrouded by the shadow of Po World success I'm sorry for saying that regardless enshrouded on release found immediate success not to the level of Po world but it speaks volumes about the game and the competition it was up against selling over a million copies and reaching 160k concurrent players on Steam enshrouded isn't your standard Survival game and one of the reasons for its success is how it leans on RPG elements something for me that has been long overlooked in this genre I love BuildCraft games I love exploring worlds Gathering materials building a base progressing through different tiers of materials as it facilitates my ability to explore that world even further and unlock more content however there is one thing that I've always felt a lot of these survival games are missing and it's that personal expression of your character and not just your personal expression over the world by just Building Things by leveraging a skill tree a class system and randomized loot similar to Diablo I now have the ability to chase a power fantasy as a character and synergize with my friends while I'm playing in multiplayer get a group of four people together and you can have a mage cleric Ranger and Warrior you can even split those trees and become hybridized classes adding even more flexibility to the party and making the game feel that much more Dynamic I think what I appreciate most about my time spent playing and shrouded is that while it is like other survival games it's very playable solo the game feels entirely different when you're playing it with others valheim V Rising Minecraft grounded all of these are excellent games to play solo or with friends but we are all eventually starting to look the exact same and playing the exact same over time the dynamic of the game play doesn't really shift when you start adding more people other than generating more resources faster spending more resources faster and building more stuff adding more players in in shrouded allows you to feel like you're genuinely coordinating with your friends taking up different classes utilizing different resources wearing different gear exploring into areas further at a lower level because you have that kind of flexibility when you're playing with other players and you also have the ability to take on some of the bosses a lot earlier than you would otherwise now when I first started playing and shrouded it felt like any other build Craft Survival game that I'd played in the past which by the way isn't a problem because I love that kind of genre of game but with that said outside of the things that made it feel a little bit different it relatively felt the same and those things that made it feel different were like the Shroud which is kind of this timed poisonous area that you can only stay and explore in for so long before you need to leave or find a shrine to be able to recharge your protection it has bosses and randomized loot it has classes and arguably one of the best Building Systems in any of these kind of games period I haven't seen many others do anything better and it wasn't until I started playing with a friend of mine that all of a sudden that Dynamic shifted entirely started playing the game entirely different because normally when I play a lot of these Survival Games usually we all kind of split up you know we go do our own thing we go to build our own base or whatever it might be and then you know congregate at another point to go do something specifically together but when playing and shrouded we were connected at the hip he was playing a ranger I playing as a spell sword healing us throwing out Fireballs jumping in doing melee keeping enemies away from him while he's firing arrows and it made for some really Dynamic gameplay that I'm not really used to from games like this and it's something that I really appreciate about the game and I'll be honest with you after a while of playing the game and being kind of lost in combat for a while I almost forgot that I was even playing a BuildCraft game to begin with and after seeing what they're planning on doing with their Early Access and what they've already done to the game so far I'm wondering what this game is going to be now I will say that early access does have its pitfalls and I will always recommend to my viewers to do your research and really believe in a product before you invest your money into it because it's something that may never be fully realized I've had great Early Access experiences like the three years that I spent playing balers Gate 3 before its release batro has me absolutely hooked right now core Keepers has been fantastic death must die v rising and the list goes on I've equally been burned by Early Access games in the past like Diablo I and Starfield however I wasn't expecting just how full of an experience enshrouded was set to deliver upon its release sure the game does have some rough edges some things that I would like to see changed however the map is huge the environments are varied the options available for building decorating gearing and customizing are something like I haven't seen in Early Access before players will have no issue dropping a couple hundred hours into this game if they aren't solely focused on combat progression alone from my perspective after playing the game for roughly 50 hours they could easily just smooth out the Corners add a couple bosses and call it a day but that's not the goal of this studio in all of the interviews with the staff from Larry and Studios following the success of balers Gate 3 they attributed their success to two things more than anything else they did their research and knew what the players wanted and they leveraged the community feedback in Early Access to deliver on that experience Keen games is emulating that exact same philosophy with enshrouded but to an absurd level I had assumed that their first major patch would most likely be something cosmetic maybe fixing some performance issues maybe even unlocking another explorable area no the first patch was a total hay maker with its first patch dubbed Hollow Halls they added a dungeon to each biome with enemies that correspond to the level of that area rewarding players with new loot new materials a new crafting station a new NPC new quests and more all of these new materials mean that there's new crafting recipes for every single vendor new furniture new weapons new armor new blocks and the list goes on in the two months since the release of the game on January 24th until the recording of this video Keen games has balanced the game increased performance added matchmaking added a ton of quality of life new explorable areas new bosses new items and more most if not all of the content that is being added is coming from player suggestions and player voting oh and by the way that's not all alongside the game's recent update they posted a road map for more content that's going to be headed our way this year including our ability to be able to share bases so you can copy base designs from other people if you're not a builder yourself world events instance dungeons like Diablo I and MMOs more biomes to explore and also water wait I'm just now realizing the game doesn't have any water now to say that I am surprised by the level of effort that they put in and the amount of content they put into the game would be a lie because I'm absolutely floored the amount of ambition behind what they're doing over there at Keen games is ridiculous but I think people fail to realize that this is exactly what you need to do to be able to make a successful game when you do not have the resources to get to the Finish Line you have to go into Early Access you have to listen to The Players you have to incorporate their feedback into the game and then grow the game off of that feedback and that's exactly what they're doing with enshrouded and something that is oh so frustrating for me lately is listening to these industry heads talk about how there's a concerning lack of growth within the industry and that's the reason why they have to lay off or the further commodi Iz ation of video games or have to increase prices or why games aren't finished entirely when they have to come out things like that but when I look around I see there is no issue with growth in the industry the growth just isn't on their side laran Studios and balers Gate 3 Arrowhead Studios and Hell diers 2 uh Iron Gate and last Epoch Keen games and enshrouded all of these companies are doing just fine and the reason why is because they have the agility the flexibility and more importantly the empathy to understand what the players want and how to make a game that players actually want to play and with what we're seeing from Keen games already and in shrouded you love to see it but more than anything I'm just wondering what they're going to be able to pull off next in shrouded is a game that is brimming with so much potential and so much of it is already realized the game is already beautiful the world is vibrant the sections of the map that are caught in the Shroud offer this non-intrusive linearity to an open world game that really helps the player focus on exploring specific sections of the map before moving on to the next class builds offer unique depth for the momentto moment gameplay and a whole other layer of character progression that is otherwise not existent in many other open world crafting games bosses Dungeons and quests provide a familiar Loop for me to be able to explore their world and focus on ways to be able to create challenges and goals for myself rather than just looking for the next tier of material to upgrade my crafting stations and Equipment while much of what makes a BuildCraft game is here in in shrouded the game doesn't simply just copy what's already been done they're innovating on it now I don't want to blow the game out of proportion it has its fair share of issues and there are things that I would like to see change with the game while enshrouded does deliver on a great deal it doesn't deliver on all of those things flawlessly in shrouded has hands down one of the best Building Systems in all of BuildCraft games the variety of bases and the creativity players are able to express in the game is unlike anything I've ever seen before with that said the inventory system for building isn't as straightforward or as easily approachable as we've seen in other games if you want tables Windows crafting tables processing stations doors chairs or decorations well you have to build those through a vendor first put them in your inventory then put them on your hot bar and then place them on the ground rather than just selecting them from a crafting wheel and being done with it in order to build you can't use raw materials instead you have to craft with building blocks then you have to craft roof pieces completely separately when you have them in your personal inventory and then you can place them down using the hammer personally I feel like this system would be massively improved if decorations Furniture crafting stations walls and roofs were all craftable and placeable from the same menu rather than having to take all of these unnecessary steps that otherwise worsen The Experience randomized geared equipment is a great addition to a BuildCraft game however it lacks the depth to make it inter interesting as much as it probably should be items that drop have Rarities added bonuses and can be upgraded however all of the items that drop are the exact same you'll find the exact same item with varying Rarities however it's just the exact same item with increased base damage the exact same substats but one more available upgrade slot you'll also often find a lot of weapons but you rarely find any gear and the substats aren't interesting enough for you to be excited about this and this is a major issue for me because they're planning on adding instance dungeons however without interesting loot to get from those dungeons I'm not really understanding why they would be useful bosses are a great way to be able to create goals or gear checks for players they offer a challenge a Chase to become strong enough to be able to fight them and a fun experience to be able to coordinate and take them down with friends however in my experience fighting the Wisp wyvern as an example as well as many of the other shroud bosses enemy tells aren't very clearly telegraphed the boss mechanics are simplistic and at the exact same time they deal more than half of your health in damage what ends up happening is is that I find these moments where I would get hit by a boss not because the fight was difficult but because the fight took too long and often the fight became too repetitive to be able to retain my attention now while on the topic of combat I really don't know how to describe this properly but the rhythm of enemy attacks and the speed of enemies just feels off maybe it's even the speed of the character when enemies attack they attack when you don't expect them to they're more faster or slower than you would expect them to be and overall it just made combat feel unnatural and unintuitive I play a lot of action RPGs hell it's one of the main focuses of this channel there is a level of intuition that you build up from playing a ton of games like this and it doesn't really seem applicable in this game the way that it should be now you're probably sitting there thinking to yourself didn't you say that you love the bosses the building the classes and all of these other things and yes I do I do love all of those things however they do have issues but these issues are more nagging issues than anything else and it's nothing that would ruin your overall experience while you're playing the game however they are issues and for those who haven't purchase the game they deserve to have that kind of context before investing in it with that said this is a game that I support and it's also a game that I think I want other people to support as well because there's something really special that's going on here and it's something that I want to make more people aware of because these are the kind of companies that we want to succeed in the industry because that's how we get better games as a result people that are actually listening to players the people that are actually making games that players actually want to play those are the guys that we want on top of the industry not the Jokers that are up there right now and with the issues that I do have with the game I am not concerned whatsoever because of how rapidly they've been changing this game how much content they've been putting into the game I can't imagine that my concerns would be concerns for very long because they are listening to player feedback they are watching videos of seen them like reposting people's videos that only have like two or 300 views of just their builds and stuff like that and you love to see that kind of community feedback you love to see that kind of Engagement coming from a studio and that's something that I want to see more of out there more than anything else and I want a studio that's appreciative appreciative I want a studio that appreciates the players and I want to appreciate them so uh I hope you guys enjoyed this video I know that I liked making it this is a video that I was looking forward to making it just took a really long time to be able to make it because there were so many games that came out in Rapid succession that I wasn't expecting to be as good as they were and obviously I had to cover those as well Grand blue fantasy sweetheart I'm on my way don't worry soon soon but anyway if you guys enjoyed this video think about subscribing to the channel liking the video dropping a comment down below more than anything try to catch me live on Twitch I go live four days a week or at least I try two days I try to make videos the other four I stream and one day I take off to chill my life is yours anyway hope you guys enjoyed this stay cool stay righteous stay safe and most of all I'll see you in the next video peace 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Channel: Legendary Drops

Views: 18,911

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Id: 17Q1iJFpJes

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024