Enshrouded is a survival adventure its players have perfected into an art form

Two years after entering Early Access, the full PC and PlayStation 5 release is only hours away.

Cozy pubs hidden underwater, exotic tree houses above forests, cathedrals that took hundreds of hours to build. While some games require you to explore a world that others have built, Enshrouded invites players to make it their own. Now the real journey is about to begin.

Those who played Enshrouded during early access know that the wait was worth it. The long-awaited version 1.0, scheduled for October 15th, finally takes the ambitious combination of survival RPG and world sim to the next level. The full release promises answers to burning questions about the origins of the Shroud, the poisonous mist that covers the land, and what led to the fall of Embervale. It also teases new enemies, biomes, and gameplay improvements.

Your task in Enshrouded is to take back a kingdom. Embervale is consumed by the Shroud, a deadly mist that drains your life force and will eventually kill you. Fallen Kingdom is a risk-reward playground where players dare to risk their lives to find powerful treasures. Beyond the Shroud lie ancient ruins, hidden cultures, and secrets scattered throughout the Crafted World. Surviving long enough to discover them requires using grappling hooks, gliders, and nail-biting feats of tenacity to navigate the miasma safely before time runs out.

Nothing in Enshrouded is accidental - everything is deliberately placed somewhere. It is dangerous to try to do it alone. Fortunately, you don't have to.

Up to sixteen players on PC, eight on PS5, can share a world at the same time, and not everyone has to attempt the same challenge. One player can build and another can explore, while a third farms resources, each contributing to the broader goal of reclaiming Embervale. There are no roles in an Enshrouded cooperative session that operate outside the ring. As a result, no player has to give up what they enjoy doing to support someone else's preferred approach.

It also deals with how the game handles its survival systems: hunting, fishing, ranching, and farming all sit alongside combat as ways to gain resources and upgrades. A player who wants to spend a session growing plants and taming animals instead of clearing ruins is playing the game, not working around it.

The launch of the PS5, which comes with version 1.0, ushers in a new wave of players into these shared universes, and the post-launch roadmap means the release is as much a fresh start as a well-earned victory lap.

While survival games can be harsh and inhospitable, the brutal world of Enshrouded is softened by the attractive incentives of its sim. This is an action RPG game for people who might accidentally spend most of their time building pirate ships in a lagoon or a safe castle on top of a steep cliff. The world is fully sculptable, meaning players aren't limited to placing pre-made objects on flat ground. Bases can go under waterfalls, into mountains, and even expand into miniature cities.

Dynamic water was one of the features added during early access, a technical feat for a voxel-based game that opened up a whole new level of what construction could look like here. Precision tools and pre-made blocks sit at opposite ends of the construction spectrum, and players can move between them as they please. To date, the growing Enshrouded community has produced structures that look less like survival game shelters and more like long-lost architectural marvels.

Real-world castles, underground cities, recreated giant toilets - the game's shared adventure means that each player's creations can become fresh content for someone else.

Combat runs on a skill-based system backed by an upgrade tree deep enough to ensure a diverse array of viable and rewarding builds. Greatswords, magic, combo archetypes: specialization options are extensive, and the game doesn't punish players for taking an unconventional path through the talent system.

The increasing enemies will test every build you commit to, meaning the fight will get tougher as your character's ability increases. But players can adjust the difficulty based on their preferences. This means that a basic builder can experience low-pressure sessions while hardcore combat enthusiasts can step up the challenge to test their abilities.

It's exactly this kind of flexibility that has helped Enshrouded earn an 87% positive rating on Steam. More than five million users played Enshrouded during its early access, setting the foundation for the game. Today, community feedback from tens of thousands of hours of players crafting, exploring, and fighting to survive has led to changes in combat dynamics, performance optimizations, and system overhauls.

Speaking of improvements, the game has released eight major updates over the past two years to fix pain points with the cooperation of the community. Perhaps the best example of this is Enshrouded's final boss, Fell Dragon Youngling. While this proved to be a challenge for players, the developers made it a priority to fine-tune the climactic encounter to make it memorable. In the upcoming version, flying, fishing, and pets will also receive fan-requested improvements.

Enshrouded 1.0 is more than a complete content. Tested just like the players who have been there since day one. Improved graphics and performance are part of the 1.0 package, along with combat and gameplay revisions that came out of that feedback loop. For anyone who followed Enshrouded through Early Access and held off on the final version, mark your calendars and get ready for a true adventure.

Enshrouded 1.0 launches on October 15 for PC, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 5 Pro, with an Xbox Series X|S release scheduled for spring 2027.