TL;DR - VERY GOOD. I will nitpick a couple things, but make no mistake this is the most feature complete Early Access game I've ever played. Fantastic natural pacing for players of all skill levels. Content is gated by quest completion that you can accidentally through exploration. Fully voxelized world means terrain is only blocking your path if you let it. Base-building nearly anywhere with a novel system puts many other dedicated survival games to shame. Limited fast travel is augmented by your multiple bases being a travel point, that can be picked up and moved as you wish. Combat is simple enough to get by, while the parry system and stamina management gives skilled players a way to clown on bosses like an Elden Ring pro. No mounts, but the fast travel points are non-combat puzzle towers that open up the map with more and more advanced gliders. Flight is always cool, and the final glider is a treat. Biomes are vast, some enemy types are persistent and samey, others are region specific.

This game should be a template for epic survival adventure games. The only game I recall being similar was Outward from several years ago, but that wasn't nearly as well guided in narrative and lacked the depth of crafting and building. Outward was both a far more punishing game, but also flexible with mods and difficulty options. Even so, it was much harder to get into and didn't hook me for the long run.

Enshrouded is not terribly difficult, and thus lacks difficulty options. It provides an excellent balance of pacing and challenge, where if you're someone who excels at the game, you'll also find more difficult as you progress faster through the game. This also rewards players that prefer exploration, crafting, and base building, as all of the non-story elements provide XP as you go, making a safe gameplay loop of pushing the story ahead, then recuperating and working on the base, crafting, gathering resources, and farming, while still gaining levels to effectively make the next challenge that much easier.

My only real gripes are with the magic system. When using a staff, you collect a bunch of spells in the form of usable charges as inventory items. These take up quite a few slots, and they're not as simple to create as arrows. The nature of a spell-based system also implies some weakness system that's not readily apparent when you're fighting enemy types. While you could sus it out, there's no persistent ability to determine at first glace which spell you should be using, nor a bestiary to learn in-game. There are a few "eternal" spells that don't get consumed as you use them, but they're prohibitively expensive from a mana cost perspective to use unless fully geared and spec'd into magic. Otherwise you get maybe 3 casts before your mana is spent, and the enemy is still at half health.

Comparatively to the melee and ranged side of the combat system, magic is cumbersome and requires depth of specialization to fully embrace it, and I haven't really given it a serous run yet to see how it actually performs. Nor would it be fair to give it a shake now, 20 levels into the game. I assume when fully geared into it, things are a bit more functional, but considering how often enemies are already on top of me, melee really is the default state of combat. Bows do reasonable long-range damage without being spec'd into Dexterity for any damage bonus, and the quick-shot/cast system does make it simple enough to fight off flying enemies. I do make use of wands, as those don't require spell charges, but the very limited range effectively has you in melee anyway.

Considering the availability of multiplayer, and the several talents in the magic side of the tree, it feels like the magic system is more intended as a support/distance character that can heal and pepper enemies while a melee combatant has them engaged. But, since the multiplayer is bound to the host-players quest progression you're almost dissuaded from joining other players. What the post-game story looks like I may come back to review, but that would be the ideal place to add in multiplayer open world concepts that expand on base-building and persistent threats.

Of course, this game is in "early access". This game feels feature complete from start to 40 hours in and the final chapter of the game in front of me. I can't imagine what it will look like in another year if they continue to push more features. I have experienced a single bug where i got stuck in a jump-attack animation that eventually killed me. The AI is a bit daft, but I like having the option to cheese bosses anyway. A couple enemies (matron, berserker) are a difficulty spike in tuning, but that's intended. There's really very little to complain about in the grand scheme of the game.

Here I thought Palworld was going to eat up my time over the next couple months, but Enshrouded is definitely winning that battle as well.

TL;DR - VERY GOOD. I will nitpick a couple things, but make no mistake this is the most feature complete Early Access game I've ever played. Fantastic natural pacing for players of all skill levels. Content is gated by quest completion that you can accidentally through exploration. Fully voxelized world means terrain is only blocking your path if you let it. Base-building nearly anywhere with a novel system puts many other dedicated survival games to shame. Limited fast travel is augmented by your multiple bases being a travel point, that can be picked up and moved as you wish. Combat is simple enough to get by, while the parry system and stamina management gives skilled players a way to clown on bosses like an Elden Ring pro. No mounts, but the fast travel points are non-combat puzzle towers that open up the map with more and more advanced gliders. Flight is always cool, and the final glider is a treat. Biomes are vast, some enemy types are persistent and samey, others are region specific. This game should be a template for epic survival adventure games. The only game I recall being similar was Outward from several years ago, but that wasn't nearly as well guided in narrative and lacked the depth of crafting and building. Outward was both a far more punishing game, but also flexible with mods and difficulty options. Even so, it was much harder to get into and didn't hook me for the long run. Enshrouded is not terribly difficult, and thus lacks difficulty options. It provides an excellent balance of pacing and challenge, where if you're someone who excels at the game, you'll also find more difficult as you progress faster through the game. This also rewards players that prefer exploration, crafting, and base building, as all of the non-story elements provide XP as you go, making a safe gameplay loop of pushing the story ahead, then recuperating and working on the base, crafting, gathering resources, and farming, while still gaining levels to effectively make the next challenge that much easier. My only real gripes are with the magic system. When using a staff, you collect a bunch of spells in the form of usable charges as inventory items. These take up quite a few slots, and they're not as simple to create as arrows. The nature of a spell-based system also implies some weakness system that's not readily apparent when you're fighting enemy types. While you could sus it out, there's no persistent ability to determine at first glace which spell you should be using, nor a bestiary to learn in-game. There are a few "eternal" spells that don't get consumed as you use them, but they're prohibitively expensive from a mana cost perspective to use unless fully geared and spec'd into magic. Otherwise you get maybe 3 casts before your mana is spent, and the enemy is still at half health. Comparatively to the melee and ranged side of the combat system, magic is cumbersome and requires depth of specialization to fully embrace it, and I haven't really given it a serous run yet to see how it actually performs. Nor would it be fair to give it a shake now, 20 levels into the game. I assume when fully geared into it, things are a bit more functional, but considering how often enemies are already on top of me, melee really is the default state of combat. Bows do reasonable long-range damage without being spec'd into Dexterity for any damage bonus, and the quick-shot/cast system does make it simple enough to fight off flying enemies. I do make use of wands, as those don't require spell charges, but the very limited range effectively has you in melee anyway. Considering the availability of multiplayer, and the several talents in the magic side of the tree, it feels like the magic system is more intended as a support/distance character that can heal and pepper enemies while a melee combatant has them engaged. But, since the multiplayer is bound to the host-players quest progression you're almost dissuaded from joining other players. What the post-game story looks like I may come back to review, but that would be the ideal place to add in multiplayer open world concepts that expand on base-building and persistent threats. Of course, this game is in "early access". This game feels feature complete from start to 40 hours in and the final chapter of the game in front of me. I can't imagine what it will look like in another year if they continue to push more features. I have experienced a single bug where i got stuck in a jump-attack animation that eventually killed me. The AI is a bit daft, but I like having the option to cheese bosses anyway. A couple enemies (matron, berserker) are a difficulty spike in tuning, but that's intended. There's really very little to complain about in the grand scheme of the game. Here I thought Palworld was going to eat up my time over the next couple months, but Enshrouded is definitely winning that battle as well.