Enshrouded

6:19 Enshrouded is Keen Games' solo and co-op survival action RPG set in Embervale, a voxel-built kingdom swallowed by a corrupting fog called the Shroud; it left Steam early access with its 1.0 release on Oct 15, 2026, launching on PlayStation 5 the same day, with Xbox Series X|S planned for spring 2027. Keen's own 1.0 Update Highlights video shows what a session looks like, with the health, stamina and mana bars, the hotbar and the quest tracker on screen: a Flameborn sorts the backpack into a storage chest and upgrades a chest beside a stone wall in a settlement, a rescued survivor asks for food, loose loot is gathered in one sweep, a line goes into a sunlit pond, and a fight breaks out against a large, glowing blue creature in the blue fog of the Shroud. Over it the narrator lists the quality-of-life changes 1.0 brought: chests upgraded in place and renamed, an auto-loot setting, fishing bait that decides the catch, and enemies that no longer heal at once when you die.

You play a Flameborn, "the last ember of hope for a dying race" in Keen's words, woken from a long sleep to win the land back from the Shroud. The game mixes three things that usually live in separate genres: survival (hunting, farming, cooking, shelter and the timer that limits every trip into the fog), action RPG combat with a large skill tree and loot, and building, because the whole world is made of voxels and can be dug, terraformed and built on. It is played alone or in co-op with up to 16 players on PC and 8 on PS5, there is no PvP (Keen's FAQ), and there is no cross-play between PC and PS5 at launch (Keen, Oct 13, 2026).

Quick facts

What Enshrouded is

Enshrouded is a survival game in which survival serves the adventure rather than the reverse. Food gives timed bonuses instead of keeping you from starving, and hunger is a setting that is off by default and on in the Survival preset. What presses on every trip is the Shroud, and what keeps you coming home is the base: a Flame Altar, a roof, beds for the survivors you rescue and the crafting stations they bring. The Beginner's Guide walks through the first hours, and the Progression Guide gives the order of the regions.

Keen sells it on six pillars on its Steam page: rise as a Flameborn and shape your hero through the skill tree, explore with a grappling hook, glider and diving, survive and grow by hunting, farming and fishing, fight your way, build without limits, and conquer the Shroud. Since 1.0 the store adds a seventh promise: "When the campaign ends, your story doesn't", pointing at worlds and dungeons other players share.

Creative Director Antony Christoulakis told Game Rant in 2023 that it is "less of a story-driven game" and not trying to be "the next Witcher"; it wants "a world that actually feels like a place". The world is handcrafted rather than generated: Keen's designers sculpt it from voxel brushes, stamps and placed buildings, as the Story and Lore page and Keen's world-building video describe.

The Shroud and the Flame

2:59 The Shroud is the fog over Embervale's lowlands, and a Flameborn can only stay in it for a limited time. Keen's early access Beginner Tips video (Feb 7, 2024) explains the rule that still holds in 1.0: blue Shroud can be entered while the timer lasts, but red Shroud means your Flame level is too low for that zone and "stepping into it spells immediate doom". The answer is to return to your Flame Altar and strengthen the Flame, which opens more of the map and gives every player on the server attribute bonuses. Inside the fog wait the Fell, Shroud creatures, curses, rare materials and the Shroud Roots whose destruction grants skill points. See The Shroud.

The Flame Altar is the heart of every base: building needs one, it is a fast travel point, and each upgrade of the Flame raises everyone's stats, Shroud time and the number of altars you may place (Keen). 1.0 adds a Flame level needed before Cinder's Cradle, which raises the cap to 15 altars, and a final level 11 after the last threat, which raises it to 16 and lets altars push the Shroud back (Flame Altar and Flame Levels).

The world and its regions

0:00 Embervale is complete in 1.0. "The gates are finally opening," Keen's narrator says: north of the Veilwater Basin lies Cinder's Cradle, an ashen land where lava runs through the ruins of the Ancients below and whole pieces of land float in the sky above, the place where the secrets behind the Ancients and the Shroud come out. Keen's 1.0 changelog puts it plainly: "The full game world is now accessible. Yes, all of it."

The regions run in order of level, as Destructoid's 1.0 guide gives them: the Springlands (levels 1 to 10, with the Low Meadows), Revelwood (11 to 15), with the Blackmire to its north for players level 13 to 15, the Nomad Highlands (15 to 20), the Kindlewastes (20 to 30), the Albaneve Summits (30 to 40), the Veilwater Basin (35 to 45) and Cinder's Cradle (45 to 50). Each region has an Ancient Spire to climb for fast travel, Elixir Wells and Shroud Roots, and one of the Hollow Halls dungeons. The map and its places are on Map and Regions; the last official size Keen gave, in December 2024, was 10 by 10 km.

The fog is full of enemies of several factions: the Shroud-corrupted Fell, the human Scavengers, the Vukah, the undead Hollow, the reptilian Drak of the Veilwater Basin and a new faction in Cinder's Cradle with 14 enemy types (Enemies and Factions). Bosses guard the Elixir Wells and the high places, from the Fell Thunderbrute at the first well to the Fell Dragon Youngling of the Albaneve Summits, which 1.0 reworked; all are on Bosses.

Combat and the skill tree

2:46 Combat is third-person action with light and heavy attacks, blocking, parrying and dodging, plus bows, staffs that fire spells and wands. Keen's 2023 combat feature video, recorded before early access, shows the loop: a Flameborn fights a huge creature in blue fog with the HUD up, a level-up banner appears, and the next shot is the skill tree, a starry web of nodes in which each point is spent. There are no fixed classes: the skill tree lets players lean into melee, ranged or magic "without being locked into a single class" (Keen), and its areas carry archetype names such as Ranger, Assassin, Warrior, Guardian, Battlemage and Healer (Skill Tree, Best Builds).

4:15 1.0's biggest combat change was for mages. Keen's narrator lists nine new spell types for crowd control, area damage, utility and summons (elemental totems and skeletons), an Eternal version of every spell that no longer uses charges and can be upgraded with perks, Eternal arrows for archers, and a heavy attack for wands from the start (Magic and Spells, Combat, Weapons). Skill points come from character levels and from destroyed Shroud Roots, and the tree can be reset at a Flame Altar.

Building, crafting and survivors

1:01 Building is the half of Enshrouded many players stay for. The 1.0 launch trailer gives a stretch of its running time to player builds, each labeled "Player build by" with the builder's name: a tower rising among trees, a warm lantern-lit interior, a bridge leading to a great stone hall and a cathedral town, followed, after a warrior on a snowy cliff, by a busy settlement with its people at work. Everything is placed block by block with the Construction Hammer inside a Flame Altar's area, and terrain can be dug and shaped anywhere; 1.0 adds Airborne Architect, a skill that lets you fly around your base while you build (Building Guide).

Crafting starts in the backpack and moves to stations: the workbench, then the stations the Survivors bring. You rescue these craftspeople, the Blacksmith, Alchemist, Huntress, Farmer, Carpenter and others, from Ancient Vaults and place them in your base with the Summoning Staff, and each unlocks recipes (Crafting Stations, Materials and Ores, Armor Sets). Farming begins with the Farmer, fishing came with water in November 2025, and animals can be tamed for wool, milk and eggs (Farming, Fishing and Animals, Food and Cooking). Getting around takes a glider, a grappling hook and fast travel between Ancient Spires and Flame Altars; there are no mounts (Glider, Grappling Hook and Fast Travel).

Multiplayer, Adventure Sharing and Sparkworks

Enshrouded can be played alone, hosted from the game for friends, or run on a free dedicated server tool for up to 16 players on PC (Multiplayer and Co-op, Dedicated Servers). Characters carry their level, gear and skills between worlds, while survivors and most recipes stay with each world (Keen's FAQ). On PS5 online co-op needs PS Plus (PS5 Version).

1:52 Adventure Sharing arrived with Update 8, Forging the Path, on Apr 21, 2026. Keen's highlights video presents it as the answer to years of player castles, dungeons, mazes and mini games: a new section of the main menu where you browse other players' uploaded worlds and share your own, with puzzles, traps and spawned enemies promised for later. They came at 1.0 as Sparkworks, a logic system of switchboxes, levers, pressure plates, traps and enemy spawners joined in a graph editor, so players can build dungeons for others to play (Adventure Sharing and Sparkworks).

What 1.0 added

0:55 1.0, released on Oct 15, 2026, finished the game. Keen's highlights video runs through it: a new enemy faction and new elite and heavy variants across the other factions, a level cap of 50 with gear upgrades to 55, a new crafting tier, a survivor who specializes in Ancient knowledge, a Flame level that raises the altar limit to 16, new building blocks and furniture, older regions expanded toward the map's edges with more Shroud Roots, and a main quest that finally opens the sealed structures players spent years trying to get into. The changelog counts 37 new enemy types and variants, two new Hollow Halls (Albaneve Summits and Veilwater Basin), voiced lore notes and survivors in English, German and Mandarin Chinese, a new "brick renderer" for distant detail, and HDR. The current story is concluded, "for now". Every change is on What's New in 1.0, and the launch itself on 1.0 Release.

Early access owners did not have to buy the game again, and their saves carry over, though the skill tree resets once and Keen "strongly encourage[s]" starting a new world because the opening hours changed (Keen, Oct 13, 2026). The road there was eight major updates, from Hollow Halls in March 2024 to Forging the Path in April 2026 (Early Access Updates).

Reception and players

Critics welcomed 1.0. Metacritic's PC score stood at 88 from 11 reviews on Oct 20, 2026; GamingBolt gave it 9/10, saying it "has benefited immensely from two years in Early Access", and CGMagazine 8.5/10, "flawed but excellent", naming the lack of cross-play and the sparse story among its faults. Steam users rate it Very Positive, with 93,850 of 109,292 reviews positive on Oct 20, 2026.

Keen counts players, not sales: one million in the first four days of early access and "over 5.5 million players" by its end. On Steam, SteamDB measured an all-time peak of 160,405 concurrent players on Jan 28, 2024, and a 1.0 peak of 113,542 on Oct 18, 2026, below that record. PS5 player numbers are not published. The full story, and the awards (Best German Game at the Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2025), are on Reception and Players.

Keen Games and development

0:18 Keen Games, a Frankfurt studio founded under that name in 2005 and best known before this for Portal Knights, built Enshrouded on its own engine. Julien, Keen's Technical Director, explains in the studio's 1.0 performance video why: a fully modifiable open world with a huge view distance, a day and night cycle and players building huge spaces is "very demanding", which is why "we have our custom engine Holistic, without which Enshrouded wouldn't exist". The game was revealed on May 3, 2023, and its Steam Next Fest demo in October 2023 was the most played of that festival (Destructoid). It is the first game Keen published itself (Keen); see Keen Games.

4:50 1.0 is not the end of development. In the Road to Release video of Jan 21, 2026, Christoulakis says the roadmap items and community wishes that did not make 1.0 are not forgotten: "it's not the end but another beginning", development will continue "for years to come" with free additions and paid expansions, and "there is a world beyond Embervale". At launch Keen promised "free & paid content for years to come" and Xbox in spring 2027 (press release); cross-play is wanted but has no estimate, as of Oct 21, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is Enshrouded finished? Yes. Enshrouded left early access with its 1.0 release on Oct 15, 2026, which completed the map with Cinder's Cradle and concluded the current story, and Keen Games plans free and paid content after it.

Is Enshrouded on Xbox? Not yet. Keen Games plans to release Enshrouded on Xbox Series X|S in spring 2027 and has not given an exact date, as of Oct 21, 2026.

Is Enshrouded cross-platform? No. Enshrouded has no cross-play between PC and PS5 at launch; Keen Games says it is working on it but has no estimate.

How many players can play Enshrouded? Enshrouded supports up to 16 players on PC and up to 8 on PS5 in online co-op, and it can be played solo.

How much does Enshrouded cost? Enshrouded costs $39.99 (39,99 EUR) on Steam and PS5, with 10% off until Oct 29, 2026; the Steam Deluxe Upgrade Pack is $9.99 and the PS5 Deluxe Edition $49.99. See Price and Editions.

Is Enshrouded like Valheim? Press compares them often: Laptop Mag's early access comparison (Feb 17, 2024) found Enshrouded "isn't nearly as brutal" as Valheim, with a fixed handcrafted map instead of a generated one, a skill tree and recruitable survivors, and judged Valheim better for co-op and Enshrouded better for players who mostly play solo.

Can you play Enshrouded single-player? Yes. Enshrouded can be played entirely alone, with difficulty presets and about 30 custom world settings, and single-player can be paused.

Does Enshrouded run on Steam Deck? Yes. Enshrouded is Steam Deck Verified as of Oct 20, 2026, and its 1.0 update improved performance on handhelds and the Steam Deck.

Sources

• Enshrouded on Steam, Valve, read Oct 20, 2026
• Steam appdetails for Enshrouded, Valve, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded on the PlayStation Store, Sony, read Oct 20, 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
• Release trailer, changelog... everything you need to wait for tomorrow!, Keen Games, Oct 14, 2026
• Enshrouded Launch FAQ: Early Access reward, world, Keen Games, Oct 13, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 is LIVE!, Keen Games, Oct 15, 2026
• 1.0 Combat: changes and additions, Keen Games, Sep 23, 2026
• Forging the Path is live, Keen Games, Apr 21, 2026
• Wake of the Water update, Keen Games, Nov 10, 2025
• Melodies of the Mire update, Keen Games, Jun 5, 2024
• Developer AMA recap, Keen Games, Dec 19, 2024
• Enshrouded is available NOW!, Keen Games, Jan 24, 2024
• 1 million players, Keen Games, Jan 29, 2024
• Introducing Enshrouded, Keen Games, May 3, 2023
• General Tips (mild spoilers), Keen Games support, read Oct 20, 2026
• Server Gameplay Settings, Keen Games support, read Oct 20, 2026
• Dedicated Server Configuration, Keen Games support, read Oct 20, 2026
• Frequently Asked Questions, Keen Games support, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded FAQ, Keen Games, read Oct 20, 2026
• About Keen Games, Keen Games, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded charts, SteamDB, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded Steam reviews, Valve, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded critic reviews (PC), Metacritic, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 review, GamingBolt, Oct 14, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 review, CGMagazine, Oct 15, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 map and level guide, Destructoid, Oct 17, 2026
• Most played demos of Steam Next Fest revealed, Destructoid, Oct 17, 2023
• Enshrouded story and lore interview, Game Rant, Sep 21, 2023
• Enshrouded vs Valheim: Which co-op game is the survival king?, Laptop Mag, Feb 17, 2024
• Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2025, heise, May 14, 2025
• Enshrouded 1.0 - Update Highlights, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Oct 15, 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded 1.0 - Launch Trailer, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Oct 14, 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded - Combat Gameplay, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Jun 5, 2023 (video)
• Enshrouded Beginner Tips, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Feb 7, 2024 (video)
• Enshrouded - Forging the Path, Update 8 Highlights, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Apr 21, 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded - Performance Improvements for 1.0, Enshrouded (Keen Games), 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded - Road to Release, Enshrouded (Keen Games), Jan 21, 2026 (video)