Valheim vs Enshrouded vs RuneScape: Dragonwilds: Let's settle this

The top three survival games have entered their 1.0 era.

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Attention fellow base building giants and survival masochists, I have good news and bad news. Starting with Good: Some of the best survival crafting games are no longer available and have reached their 1.0 milestone. Bad news? Three of them piled up in the same one-month window.

I've seen a million posts all asking the same advice: "Should I get Valheim, RuneScape Dragonwilds, or Enshrouded first?" And as someone who can't stop mining the same three types of stones for hundreds of hours, I'm qualified enough to help you decide. I've also enlisted my colleague Chris Livingston, who always plays with riffs that lead to hilarious encounters with animals or injuries like some kind of weird Jeff Corwin survivalist.

Valheim, Dragonwilds and Enshrouded compared

We've got our own opinions on who's who among the recent Survival crafting 1.0 launches, but maybe you just need something to compare features to before diving into recommendations. By no means everything is included in all three games, but here's a quick comparison of the differences and similarities between the default features and settings in Valheim, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, and Enshrouded.

Valheim vs Enshrouded vs RuneScape: Dragonwilds

The most traditional survival game of this kind or another

Mining is bad, and our debate about the winner here has turned into "which is the scariest" instead of the best. Hunting ore in the Valheim Swamp biome was the worst, and the stingy nodes of the Dragonwilds came in second.

In Valheim, the trees hit back. There's nothing quite like being crushed by a forest - the other two don't even come close.

Enshrouded is the best LEGO set, hands down. Featuring blocks of all shapes and sizes, tons of furniture, landscaping, village NPCs, and even tools to add some decay to buildings.

Great on your hunt for sport (attack)

Valheim raids are a close second (a great way to get resources to your front door) but there's something strange about having a dragon boss show up at your house and bombard you with poison while you're trying to get comfortable.

Best of There and Again (Explore)

The hand-crafted worlds of Enshrouded and Dragonwilds are both fantastic, but the trip to the procedural world of Valheim is a mysterious thrill every time that makes returning home all the more satisfying.

Enshrouded won us over with its cooking mechanics - keeping your meat roasts over an open flame is a good thing - but this was close. The multi-stage process in Dragonwilds is fun to micromanage, while Valheim's system is the most rewarding.

Valheim vs Enshrouded vs Dragonwilds: Our picks

I've played Amaz covered since it launched in Early Access, and long before we had a 1.0 release date, it was at the top of my survival build favorites list. Valheim is a classic, and Dragonwilds has grown on me, but nothing like Enshrouded's base building or acrobatic combat. I never get tired of surprising enemies from the sky with my glider.

I love Dragonwilds and Enshrouded is really special, but Valheim is easily my favorite - it's not only a great survival game but something I'm sure I'll come back to year after year. It's especially great if you think you don't like survival games, because here's the thing: you do.

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Andrea has been covering games for nearly a decade, picking up bylines at IGN, USA Today, Fanbyte, and Destructoid before joining the PC Gamer team in 2025. He has a soft spot for older RPGs and is willing to try just about anything with an "I can fix them" romance element. His weekly chores always include some MMO time, hunting for endless achievements, and raiding Final Fantasy 14. Outside of these, he often has a few. Survival crafting games on a rotating basis and loves a good scare in co-op horror games.

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