1.0 Release

1:22 Enshrouded 1.0 came out on Oct 15, 2026 at 15:00 UTC (8 a.m. PDT, 11 a.m. EDT, 4 p.m. BST, 5 p.m. CEST) on Steam and PlayStation 5, after 21 months in early access that began on Jan 24, 2024. Keen Games' launch trailer, posted the day before, ends on a run of fights, a caster flinging green magic and a warrior striking in blue light, and then an end card with the key art, "Enshrouded 1.0, October 15, 2026", and the Steam and PS5 logos. Enshrouded is out of early access: Steam lists its release date as Oct 15, 2026, and Keen's "Enshrouded 1.0 is LIVE!" post went up at 15:06 UTC that day. The Xbox Series X|S version follows in spring 2027. What the update changed is on What's New in 1.0.

Quick facts

Release time

Keen's Launch FAQ of Oct 13, 2026 answered "When will 1.0 be available?" with a world map of unlock times: Thursday Oct 15 at 08:00 PDT in Los Angeles, 11:00 EDT in New York, 16:00 BST in London, 17:00 CEST in Berlin, 18:00 MSK, 20:30 IST and 23:00 in Beijing, and Friday Oct 16 at 00:00 JST in Tokyo, 02:00 AEDT in Sydney and 04:00 NZDT in Auckland. All of these are 15:00 UTC.

Keen's own launch press release of Oct 14 printed a different hour, "Tomorrow at 16h CEST / 10 a.m. EDT / 7 a.m. PDT / 2 p.m. UTC", one hour earlier. Everything measured on the day fits 15:00 UTC: SteamDB records the release at 15:03:36 UTC, Keen's "LIVE" post came at 15:06 UTC, and SteamCharts' hourly samples jumped from 9,310 players at 14:02 UTC to 20,450 at 15:02. The 10% launch discount was announced to start "October 15th at 4 p.m. CEST".

From "2025" to Oct 15, 2026

1:07 The 1.0 date moved twice. Keen's first roadmap, on Mar 13, 2024, aimed the full launch for 2025; on Jan 28, 2025 Keen moved it to spring 2026, explaining that "we're not a big team" and the world had grown bigger than planned. In the Road to Release video of Jan 21, 2026, Keen's community lead and Creative Director Antony Christoulakis announced "not a release date, but a release window": autumn 2026. A firm date would come later, Christoulakis said, because they had already had to move Wake of the Water and "saying a date and not being able to stick to it, it kind of sucks".

5:28 That earlier slip is in Keen's Dev Update of Oct 23, 2025: the team "tried as hard as we could to hold ourselves to our October deadline", but water "always finds a way", so Update 7 was pushed back "by a few weeks to November 10th". The 1.0 date itself was revealed on Jun 25, 2026 with a trailer and a press release, which also moved Xbox to spring 2027: CEO Jan Jöckel said that "achieving the level of quality and performance we expect on Xbox would require additional time" (press release).

0:00 Through the summer Keen previewed what was coming. Its "Things we're fixing for 1.0" video (Aug 19, 2026) opens with changes "you can expect to see in Enshrouded when the game releases out of early access on the 15th of October", all "based on feedback from you, the players", starting with the Fell Dragon Youngling. The steps that followed: the price rose from 29,99 to 39,99 EUR on Sep 8, the 1.0 combat changes were posted on Sep 23, Sparkworks was revealed on Oct 8, the Launch FAQ came on Oct 13, and the launch trailer and full changelog on Oct 14, the day reviews appeared.

What early access owners get

Early access owners do not buy the game again: "You do not need to buy Enshrouded PC again if you own the Early Access version" (Launch FAQ). Saves carry over and are converted to a new, smaller format on first load, with a backup made first (changelog). Keen still "strongly encourage[s]" starting over, because the world and the first hours changed.

Two things reset. Every skill tree resets once when an older save loads in 1.0, so points must be spent again, and custom key bindings went back to the defaults (changelog). As thanks, early access players get three decorative props through "Redeem Add-Ons" in the escape menu: a statue over 4 meters tall, a tome with the "E" that was the early access logo, and a signal light. Locally stored saves now live in C:\Users<user>\Saved Games\keen games\Enshrouded\default.

Launch week hotfixes

Two hotfixes followed in two days. Hotfix 1.0.0.1 (Oct 15) fixed random crashes and an indoor brightness problem, fixed the Fire Wisp scroll at level 27 because its damage had scaled with the player's level, and updated the Deluxe Upgrade Pack's artbook and map; it also broke world editing for some players, and Keen posted a workaround (subscribe to anything in Adventure Sharing, then edit). Hotfix 1.0.0.2 (Oct 16) restored world settings, fixed a crash in save migration (corrupted characters are skipped for now, with "help on the way"), removed a dense gray fog that appeared on Nvidia cards, and steadied Adventure Sharing subscriptions and the water simulation. No further patch had been posted by Oct 20, 2026.

7:22 Performance was the other launch theme. In Keen's performance video, the engine team explains why shaders compile on a PC after every update or driver change but not on consoles, where the compiled code ships with the game, and closes: "We hope that you're excited for the full release of Enshrouded on PC and PlayStation 5 on October 15th". The 1.0 changelog says shader compilation times were "significantly reduced" (Platforms and System Requirements).

Players at launch

The 1.0 launch brought the most players since early 2024. MeinMMO, watching SteamDB, saw over 43,000 players at 18:30 CEST on launch day, "the highest in eleven months", and over 55,000 at 19:20 CEST; SteamCharts sampled 64,637 at 19:02 UTC on Oct 15. Guided News saw 102,369 playing on Oct 17 at about 22:10 CEST.

SteamDB measured the 1.0 peak so far at 113,542 concurrent players at 18:50 UTC on Sunday Oct 18, 2026. That is below the all-time peak of 160,405 on Jan 28, 2024, in the first week of early access. Keen counts "over 5.5 million players" across early access and had not given a post-launch total, nor any PS5 figure, as of Oct 21, 2026 (Reception and Players).

Reviews

Critics scored 1.0 highly. Metacritic's PC Metascore was 88 from 11 reviews on Oct 20, 2026 (it read 89 from 10 earlier), and the PS5 score was still "tbd" with 3 reviews. Among the outlets: Try Hard Guides 100, PC Games 90, 4Players 90 (building "on par with Minecraft"), Hardcore Gamer 90 ("a phenomenal achievement in survival RPGs"), GameStar 87, Jeuxvideo.com 85 and SECTOR.sk 85, as Metacritic lists them. GamingBolt gave 9/10 ("Enshrouded has benefited immensely from two years in Early Access"), faulting the thin story, simple quests and a Sparkworks that needs better tutorials. CGMagazine gave 8.5/10, "flawed but excellent", naming the missing cross-play, sparse story, enemy crowds and small starting inventory, and estimated "roughly 100 hours" for a full playthrough.

OpenCritic's 82 mixes 1.0 reviews with 2024 early access reviews (IGN's 7/10 is from 2024), so it is not a 1.0 score. On Steam, 93,850 of 109,292 user reviews were positive on Oct 20, 2026 (Very Positive).

What comes next

4:50 Keen calls 1.0 "not the end but another beginning". In the Road to Release video, Christoulakis promises development "for years to come", with free additions and paid expansions, and "a world beyond Embervale". The launch press release repeats "free & paid content for years to come" and the Xbox Series X|S launch in spring 2027. Cross-play is wanted: "We are working on bringing cross-platform play to Enshrouded, but have no current estimate" (Launch FAQ). No date for the first paid content and no 2027 roadmap had been announced as of Oct 21, 2026. The eight updates that led here are on Early Access Updates.

Frequently asked questions

What time did Enshrouded 1.0 release? Enshrouded 1.0 unlocked on Oct 15, 2026 at 15:00 UTC, which is 8 a.m. PDT, 11 a.m. EDT and 5 p.m. CEST, per Keen Games' Launch FAQ map.

Is Enshrouded out of early access? Yes. Enshrouded left Steam early access with version 1.0 on Oct 15, 2026, 21 months after its early access launch on Jan 24, 2024.

Is Enshrouded 1.0 out on PS5? Yes. Enshrouded launched on PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro on Oct 15, 2026, the same day as the PC 1.0 release.

Do I have to buy Enshrouded again for 1.0? No. Keen Games says early access owners on PC do not need to buy Enshrouded again, and they also get three exclusive decorative props.

Do Enshrouded early access saves carry over to 1.0? Yes. Enshrouded converts early access saves to a new format on first load, but the skill tree resets once and Keen Games encourages starting a new world because the opening was reworked.

Is Enshrouded 1.0 on Xbox? No. Enshrouded is planned for Xbox Series X|S in spring 2027, with no exact date as of Oct 21, 2026.

When does the Enshrouded launch discount end? The 10% Enshrouded launch discount runs for the first 14 days, until Oct 29, 2026 (4 p.m. UTC on the PlayStation Store).

Sources

• Enshrouded Launch FAQ: Early Access reward, world, Keen Games, Oct 13, 2026
• Release trailer, changelog... everything you need to wait for tomorrow!, Keen Games, Oct 14, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 is LIVE!, Keen Games, Oct 15, 2026
• Changelog for Hotfix 1.0.0.1, Keen Games, Oct 15, 2026
• Changelog for Hotfix 1.0.0.2, Keen Games, Oct 16, 2026
• Enshrouded Emerges into 1.0 on PC and PlayStation 5, Keen Games press release, Oct 14, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 release date announcement, Keen Games press release, Jun 25, 2026
• Enshrouded - 1.0 Release Date Reveal, Keen Games, Jun 25, 2026
• Now's the best time to get Enshrouded!, Keen Games, Aug 31, 2026
• 1.0 Combat: changes and additions, Keen Games, Sep 23, 2026
• Introducing Sparkworks, Keen Games, Oct 8, 2026
• Roadmap 2024, Keen Games, Mar 13, 2024
• A year of Enshrouded, Keen Games, Jan 28, 2025
• Enshrouded is available NOW!, Keen Games, Jan 24, 2024
• Steam appdetails for Enshrouded, Valve, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded on the PlayStation Store (UK), Sony, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded charts, SteamDB, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded, SteamCharts, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 live ticker, MeinMMO, Oct 15, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 passes 100,000 concurrent Steam players, Guided News, Oct 17, 2026
• Enshrouded critic reviews (PC), Metacritic, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded critic reviews (PS5), Metacritic, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded, OpenCritic, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded Steam reviews, Valve, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 review, GamingBolt, Oct 14, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 review, CGMagazine, Oct 15, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 - Launch Trailer, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Oct 14, 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded - Road to Release, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Jan 21, 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded - Dev Update 2025, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Oct 23, 2025 (video)
• Enshrouded - Things we're fixing for 1.0, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Aug 19, 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded - Performance Improvements for 1.0, Enshrouded (Keen Games), 2026 (video)