Enshrouded

this game has saved my life. i had a stroke in 2022 and the doctors told my daughters i would not make it but after a year in the hospital i am still here. the cutom mode to the game i know the true gamers do not like but for meit is only reson i can play my right arm dont work and i am bedridden i cannot stand up or walk i can only sit on sie of the bed and play. my daudhter has my computer on a table so can pull to the bed. becase of my handicaps if no for the custom setting iwuld nt be here.

TL:DR; Cant recommend it highly enough. Keen has restored my faith in Early Access games. Well worth every penny. (when paid DLC so i can throw more money at you?) ~650 hours in EA, and have almost nothing but glowing praise for this game and the team at Keen. Easily one of the most responsive dev teams in my 30+ years of gaming. Theyve given us nearly all of the features we asked for, and a giant pile of cool stuff we didnt think to. You can give them your money, and rest comfortably knowing its going to make an incredible game even better. (am literally writing this to help eat time before the 1.0 update launches in a few hours. lol) Exploration is stellar. There's a reason to go check out that cool tower in the distance above and beyond maybe just finding a new resource. The world is jam packed with POI's, quests, story pages, secrets, collectibles, decorations, etc. Building is top notch. I typically build "functional only" bases in sandbox games. Ive spent probs 60h building here. So much flexibility allows for insane levels of creativity. (check the community build contests to see what i mean.) Best of all, its actually enjoyable. And you can show off/check out others builds in-game via adventure sharing (which is about to get waaaaay cooler with the "sparkworks" wiring/redstone system being added in 1.0. *excited noises*) My only complaint with building is blocks/walls/floors are locked to 90deg rotations, in EA. (PLZ give us furniture rotation controls on blocks Keen! This would put Enshrouded on the "Minecraft tier" of practically infinite build creativity.) Combat is much faster paced than similar titles (valheim, RS: dragonwilds, etc) with a good variety of attack types via 3 distinct but easily mixed classes (mage, melee, ranger) - But it does get a little "click spammy" at times. (with a decent melee build at around level 20+ you can stand and hack with basically no danger) Big plus for Parry mechanics that are visually clear, and require you to actually time them correctly (cant "cheese" perfect parries like valheim or Dragonwilds) Its so good in the vanilla form, its tough to even think of QoL mods that are needed (Craft from containers, deposit stacks, etc are just base game features you unlock through a little world progression) - I guess something to plant a bunch at once? lol. Literally almost perfect game in vanilla form.

Negatives First: 1. World feels a little bit lifeless. I'm not sure exactly why, but the world feels a little bit lifeless despite the various points of interest scattered around. Towns and settlements all abandoned. Not a single other friendly soul. Oh there are NPCS that you acquire. But it's not like you find them actually out in the world, with dialogue and drama and intrigue waiting for you to save them or talk them into joining you. All you do is unlock the ability to summon them into your base and I'll be honest, despite the quality of the voices behind them, they also feel a bit lifeless. I don't know, there's not one thing alone, but the combination of things. It probably is exacerbated by playing solo, I realize. But the game doesn't feel like a survival game, it feels it was meant to be a single player RPG, one in which there are towns and merchants and various goings on, not an entire world crawling with just mindless baddies. Shoot, even Dark Souls has levity in it's NPCS. 2. Item progression is wonky I've managed to find 10-12 legendary items in the first 15 hours of play. I've actually found a couple of duplicate legendaries! And seemingly I'll never ever have to replace any of those items for the rest of the game and I've barely cleared like 10% of the map (Edit: after more time played, this is not accurate because as you go into zones with higher level enemies all of the items base stats will be slightly higher, meaning you will be replacing your legendaries with other legendaries. Also the map is flipping massive, I've probably cleared closer to 5%). And the thing is I find a new a weapon every 5 minutes that is just a lower rarity copy of the ones I have sitting in my chest. It's apparent that the game is balanced towards group play. They also seem to be doing something closer to the Crimson Desert route where upgrades are more often cosmetic than anything else, which, I'm sure is just a concession made because of how massive games are getting where stuffing every nook and cranny with a unique, interesting item just isn't feasible. But it definitely doesn't lend itself to making the world feel more alive when the gold chest at the end of the puzzle is just a lower rarity copy of the legendary I found in a random chimney. Positives: 1. Level Design is good! The level design in this game is definitely a highlight. Lots of different little places to explore, caves and tombs and crypts and settlements crawling with a bunch of pests*ahem enemies, most with a secret chest or two. The map is almost too big. 2. The game is polished. It looks good, everything runs and plays smoothly. Inventory feels strangely oversized, but is overall polished. 3. Great soundtrack! Sound design is nice, ambience fits the visuals well. The music is a close runner up to my favorite thing which, hilariously is: 4. The voice actor who does all of the journals in the game is top notch. In 95% of games I stop paying attention to lore after the first couple hours. But this game has the best solution: every single note you find plays a fully voiced version in the background and the dude that voices them is GOOD. I'm talking: Firaxis could hire this guy to narrate the next Civilization game, good. He is a small shot of humanity. Overall, I think the game is decent and, if you don't mind the drawbacks, especially to a solo playthrough, give it a shot, otherwise, go live your life. If you read that whole thing, you deserve one of these: 🍪