ENSHROUDED Early Access Review: A Massive, Immersive World At Your Fingertips
Story and Gameplay
2024 is already shaping up to be an incredible year for gaming. With Pop: The Lost Crown, Palworld, and now Enshrouded, we have already been bombarded with a handful of stellar titles with many more lingering on the horizon. Let’s just get this out of the way right now: Enshrouded is an absolute triumph. One of the best examples of the incredible potential that Early Access games can have. Yes, I know there are lots of stinkers in Early Access but this bucks that trend hard.
Instead of going into detail about the solid storyline, let’s talk about the gameplay. This is a crafting game at heart but where it really excels in the massive world full of quality content and a soaring adventure that even the grumpiest of old gamers (me) had a huge smile on his face more times than he can count. Being enshrouded in the mist and fog is terrifying yet rewarding. Finding well-hidden secrets as you explore, fight, glide, and climb your way through this world just feels right. Breath of the Wild and Zelda who?! Enshrouded while sometimes feels like a nod to modern Zelda games, does so many things even better!
Graphics and Sound
Despite some performance improvements needed, Enshrouded is a gorgeous game and during some moments, it’s absolutely gorgeous to behold. Whether you are scaling huge buildings, watching the sunrise from a stone tower, diving into the daytime fog, or blowing up huge piles of rubble, it’s a beautiful game and if your system can handle it, max settings are jaw-dropping. I ran mostly with DLSS on a RTX 4090 and I still had some choppy moments where my disk, CPU, and GPU were not maxed out so some optimization is in order. It’s really sad about those huge FPS drops but I did notice the performance got better with patches throughout the review period.
That being said, the audio is as impressive as the graphics. The musical score is both grandiose and beautifully subtle when it needs to be.
Feedback and Conclusion
Despite some big FPS drops, I am in love with this game. In a world where generally I am a bit jaded by survival/crafting games on Steam, especially in Early Access, Enshrouded soars above the rest. What’s even more exciting is that this is just the beginning. I can’t imagine where this title will be in months and hopefully, years to come. On sale right now for $26.99 on Steam (normally $29.99) there is currently no better value in gaming. I cannot wait to see where this game goes and where the incredibly talented team at Keen takes it. Either way, it’s time for you to dive into this stunning game right now.