Zelda meets Valheim in this co-op fantasy RPG
If you’d asked me last week if I wanted to live in a house built on a boulder sculpted to look like a giant’s skull I’d have said, “No, not really, not quite my thing,” and then spent several hours wondering what was wrong with you. That’s a deeply weird question to ask someone.
But after seeing the voxel-based building tools in Enshrouded, the upcoming co-op survival RPG developer Keen Games describes as Valheim meets Zelda, I have to admit… yes, I think I do want to live in a house built on a boulder sculpted to look like a giant’s skull. And I apologise for criticising your question so harshly. That wasn’t cool of me!
In Enshrouded, which will enter Early Access on Steam later this year, you explore a dangerous realm where a deadly fog has crept in to cover almost everything, mutating creatures caught within it and giving rise to hideous monsters. Above the fog on safer ground, you can hunt, gather resources and build yourself a home.
Despite what looks like character classes (rogues, warriors, mages, and so on) you’re not forced to pick a specific class at the start of the game. You can unlock skills from an open-ended skill tree and specialise in different styles of play. If you want to dabble in stealth and archery, with a bit of magic and swordplay thrown in, you can unlock skills from any branch you want. You won’t be restricted or forced down a certain path.
DABBLE IN STEALTH AND ARCHERY, WITH A BIT OF MAGIC AND SWORDPLAY THROWN IN HOME BASE
I’m definitely down with killing monsters, exploring the world and using grappling hooks and wingsuits to get around, but the base-building system in Enshrouded has me more interested than anything else. Building can be done in a completely freeform fashion where you get to shape and mould every last inch of your base, or you can use pre-made templates to build floors, walls and other structures. The voxel system lets you smoosh walls, pillars and floors together, and it all winds up looking nice and seamless, and once you’ve built something you can alter it just about any way you want.
That’s where the system is really flexible, and what’s especially nice is that it looks like the building tools can tell whether you��
