Reception and Players

0:13 Enshrouded is well reviewed and widely played. Its 1.0 release scored 88 on Metacritic for PC from 11 critic reviews, "Generally Favorable" (read Oct 20, 2026); its Steam user reviews are "Very Positive", 93,850 of 109,292 positive, about 86% (read Oct 20, 2026). On Steam it peaked at 113,542 players at once after 1.0, on Oct 18, 2026, below its all-time peak of 160,405 on Jan 28, 2024 (SteamDB). Keen counts players, not sales: in its "Road to Release" video of Jan 21, 2026, Keen announces that the game had "recently crossed the 5 million players mark", and by the end of early access Keen counted "over 5.5 million players" (Keen, Oct 14, 2026).

Quick facts

Is Enshrouded good? The 1.0 reviews

Reviews of 1.0 went up on Oct 14, 2026, the day before launch. On Metacritic's PC page, read on Oct 20, 2026, the scores were Try Hard Guides 100, PC Games 90, 4Players 90, Hardcore Gamer 90, GameStar 87, Jeuxvideo.com 85, GAMES.CH 85, SECTOR.sk 85, CGMagazine 85 and Gamersky 82 (Metacritic); the Metascore read 89 from 10 reviews before the eleventh arrived.

• GamingBolt gave it 9/10 (Joelle Daniels, Oct 14, 2026): "Enshrouded has benefited immensely from two years in Early Access." Against it: a thin story, simple quests, and Sparkworks needing better tutorials.
• CGMagazine gave it 8.5/10 (Eduard Gafton, Oct 15, 2026), "flawed but excellent", faulting the missing cross-play, sparse story, enemy crowds and a small starting inventory, and estimating "roughly 100 hours" for a full playthrough.
• Hardcore Gamer called it "a phenomenal achievement in survival RPGs"; PC Games "one of the most impressive survival games on PC"; 4Players rated its building "on par with Minecraft" (quotes as shown on Metacritic, read Oct 20, 2026).

On PS5, Metacritic showed "tbd" with 3 reviews: PC Games 90, TheSixthAxis 90 and Jeuxvideo.com 85 (read Oct 20, 2026). Across the reviews the world, the building, the reworked combat and the skill tree drew praise, while the lack of cross-play, the thin story and some PC performance issues drew complaints. No 1.0 review from IGN, GameSpot, PC Gamer, Eurogamer or GamesRadar+ had been found as of Oct 20, 2026. More on what 1.0 changed: 1.0 Release.

OpenCritic shows a Top Critic Average of 82 with 93% of critics recommending, from 31 reviews (read Oct 20, 2026), but it mixes the 2024 early access reviews with the 1.0 ones, so it is not a pure 1.0 score. IGN's 7/10 shown there is its early access review of 2024.

The early access reception

2:55 Early access players took to the game quickly but criticized its combat and its late game. In "Road to Release" (Jan 21, 2026) Christoulakis says "there has been criticism of combat and we understand that", and promises "more tactical depth, better enemy behavior, balancing changes and a higher level of enemy variety", while keeping the game customizable for builders and fighters alike. That work became Forging the Path (Apr 21, 2026) and 1.0's combat changes (Combat).

2:12 Replayability was the other early complaint. In Keen's 2024 AMA recap a player says "other than building there's very little to do after completing all the quests", and Keen answers with plans for the end of early access or later: world events, instanced dungeons, server gameplay settings, more biomes, and base sharing and user-generated content, which arrived as Adventure Sharing and Sparkworks.

Steam's all-time reviews stayed "Very Positive" through early access; Keen cited "Very Positive (36k reviews)" in March 2024 (Keen, Mar 13, 2024). The story of the updates is on Early Access Updates.

Player milestones

Keen announces players, not copies sold. Its milestones:

4:31 Keen uses the figure in its own videos: the Forging the Path highlights (Apr 21, 2026) close by noting "there are over 5 million Flameborn" and asking viewers to follow the channel. At 3 million players Keen also shared over 90 million hours played (GamesMarket, Aug 8, 2024). Keen had published no total since 1.0, and no PlayStation 5 numbers, as of Oct 21, 2026.

Steam player count

SteamDB measures how many people play on Steam at once (PlayStation 5 is not included). Its figures, read on Oct 20, 2026 (SteamDB):

• All-time peak: 160,405 on Jan 28, 2024, four days after the early access launch.
• 1.0 peak so far: 113,542 on Sunday, Oct 18, 2026, at 18:50 UTC. It did not beat the 2024 record.
• On Oct 20, 2026: a 24-hour peak of 90,443, with 84,591 playing at the time of reading.

Monthly peaks on SteamDB show how each update brought players back:

Launch day climbed fast. MeinMMO, reading SteamDB, reported over 43,000 at 18:30 CEST on Oct 15, "the highest in eleven months", and over 55,000 at 19:20 CEST; Guided News saw 102,369 playing on Oct 17 at about 22:10 CEST. On Oct 20 SteamDB ranked it #17 among Steam's top sellers and #10 in wishlist activity, with 401,549 followers.

Awards and records

• Steam Next Fest, October 2023: Enshrouded's demo was the most played demo of the festival (Destructoid, Oct 17, 2023).
• German Developer Awards 2024: Best Game Design, Best German Game and Best Technical Achievement, with Studio of the Year for Keen Games (Keen, Dec 4, 2024).
• Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2025: Best German Game, worth 100,000 euros, and Best Innovation and Technology (heise, May 14, 2025).

The studio behind it is on Keen Games.

Frequently asked questions

Is Enshrouded good? Critics rate Enshrouded 1.0 highly: 88 on Metacritic for PC from 11 reviews (Oct 20, 2026), with praise for its world, building and reworked combat. Steam users rate it Very Positive, about 86% of 109,292 reviews.

What is Enshrouded's Metacritic score? Enshrouded 1.0 has a Metascore of 88 on PC from 11 critic reviews, as of Oct 20, 2026; the PS5 score was still "tbd" with three reviews. The user score on PC is 8.0.

How many people play Enshrouded? Enshrouded peaked at 113,542 players at once on Steam on Oct 18, 2026, after 1.0, according to SteamDB; PS5 numbers are not published. Keen counted over 5.5 million players by the end of early access.

What is Enshrouded's all-time peak on Steam? Enshrouded's all-time Steam peak is 160,405 players at once, on Jan 28, 2024, four days after the early access launch (SteamDB). The 1.0 peak of 113,542 on Oct 18, 2026 did not beat it.

How many copies has Enshrouded sold? Keen Games does not publish sales; it counts players, and it counted over 5.5 million by the end of early access (Oct 14, 2026). It reached 1 million players in four days in January 2024.

What awards has Enshrouded won? Enshrouded won Best German Game at the Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2025 and three German Developer Awards in 2024, where Keen Games was also named Studio of the Year.

Sources

• Enshrouded critic reviews (PC), Metacritic, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded critic reviews (PlayStation 5), Metacritic, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded, OpenCritic, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded user reviews, Steam, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded, PlayStation Store, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded charts, SteamDB, read Oct 20, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 review: finally feels complete, GamingBolt, Oct 14, 2026
• Enshrouded 1.0 PC review, CGMagazine, Oct 15, 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 - 1.0 Launch announcement, Keen Games press release, Oct 14, 2026
• 1 million players, Keen Games (Steam), Jan 29, 2024
• 2 million players, Keen Games (Steam), Feb 20, 2024
• Roadmap reveal, Keen Games (Steam), Mar 13, 2024
• 3 million players, Keen Games (Steam), Aug 8, 2024
• 4 million players, Keen Games (Steam), Apr 10, 2025
• Road to Release, Keen Games (Steam), Jan 21, 2026
• German Developer Awards, Keen Games (Steam), Dec 4, 2024
• Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2025, heise, May 14, 2025
• Enshrouded hits three million players, GamesMarket, Aug 8, 2024
• Most played demos of Steam Next Fest revealed, Destructoid, Oct 17, 2023
• Enshrouded - Road to Release, Enshrouded, Jan 21, 2026 (video)
• Enshrouded developers answer your questions!, Enshrouded, 2024 (video)
• Enshrouded - Forging the Path | Update 8 Highlights, Enshrouded, Apr 21, 2026 (video)