Independent German developer Keen Games (Sacred 3, Portal Knights) revealed a new game called Enshrouded today. It is a survival action RPG playable by up to sixteen players at once, and it should land later this year in early access on PC.
I was invited to a remote presentation for the press hosted by Creative Director Antony Christoulakis, who explained that the elevator pitch for Enshrouded is Zelda: Breath of the Wild meets Valheim. The core gameplay loop includes all the main tenets of these games, such as exploring, surviving, fighting, looting, gathering, crafting, and building.
The twist is that the fully handcrafted open world of Embervale is largely split into two parts: above the fog and below it. The mysterious pestilence called Shroud that plagued the land sprouted from the deepest recess of the earth, infecting and mutating everything affected by the myst. Needless to say, venturing below the fog (which was likened to diving, as players will have to reemerge after a certain amount of time) means encountering dangerous creatures but also gathering important loot and resources that can then be used in the world above to upgrade your gear and build houses. Players also have the opportunity to rescue artisan NPCs and bring them home, where their crafting expertise makes them helpful allies.
A sandbox game at heart, Enshrouded encourages folks to express themselves however they see fit through various customization layers, from appearance to combat roles. There won’t be any predetermined path other than the one chosen by the Flameborn (that’s what player characters are called in the game). While there is a class selection screen when creating your character, you can potentially access any skills by moving to a different branch of the skill tree.
As mentioned earlier, inspiration came from Breath of the Wild for the freeform exploration of the world and the combat, which I was told won’t be too punishing. Valheim, on the other hand, was picked because the developers agree that it’s best to provide buffs for players that take care of eating, sleeping, et cetera, instead of penalizing those who do not. There won’t be difficulty modifiers or settings at the early access launch, though they’re expected to be added later.
Keen Games said console releases are planned, but only after the game is fully released on PC. When I inquired about the estimated length of the early access phase, Christoulakis couldn’t say for sure, but he reckoned it would be at least one year. Still, the game already includes controller support on the PC build for anyone who prefers that over the mouse and keyboard controls.
Enshrouded is powered by the studio’s own engine. The reason for that is taking advantage of the engine’s custom-built voxel technology created by Keen Games to allow players to sculpt the terrain during the building phase. Voxel games tend to look blocky, but the developers made an effort to hide that for this new game, providing a more realistic graphics style.
When asked whether Keen added support for upscalers like AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution and/or NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling for their game, Christoulakis confirmed that FSR is already in Enshrouded and DLSS will be added soon.
Keen Games didn’t confirm an early access date, but it sounds like we won’t have to wait too long.
