The most wishlisted game from Steam Next Fest is available now in Early Access

What you need to know

• Enshrouded from Keen Games is available on Steam from January 24, 2024, as an Early Access release.
• The game draws inspiration from Breath of the Wild and Valheim but with an overwhelmingly souls-like premise.
• The demo was among Steam's most played and wishlisted titles when it appeared during a Next Fest event.

The survival genre is experiencing a gaming moment, with Palworld absolutely dominating the conversation since it released Early Access on Steam and Game Pass this past week. Not all survival gamers want to spend their time collecting adorable Pals. If you're more in tune with high fantasy and gritty action, Enshrouded may just be the survival action RPG for you. 

Enshrouded | $30 $27 on Steam

Awaken, Flameborn, and step into the world of Embervale. The sprawling high-fantasy world is covered with a daunting fog called the Shroud. Save the kingdom from grueling, souls-like bosses while surviving the Shroud and building your own glorious cities alone or with up to 16 other players.

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Enshrouded is the latest from Keen Games, the developers behind 2016's coop adventure Portal Knights, and it blends elements of the survival, action-adventure, and RPG genres with the brutal boss battles and rich fantasy storytelling of souls-likes. Players awaken as a Flameborn in the stunningly detailed kingdom of Embervale, which has come under the cover of a haunting fog and world-consuming pestilence. You must craft your way to survival alone or with up to 16 players. 

Players can look forward to a diverse number of ways to explore and experience Enshrouded, as each flameborn can forge their path and destiny in this sprawling world. Doing so will require players to build sprawling bases using the game's custom-built, voxel-based building tools. Not only can players build, but they can adjust the world and terraform the kingdom to meet their own needs and desires. 

Much like Enshrouded's building and terraforming, the game's action mechanics are designed to be adaptable to the player's chosen means of combat. From flaming swords to powerful magic spells, all of it is a viable and reasonable way to tackle the game. A deep, rewarding skill tree system helps make it possible for you to fight back against the all-consuming Shroud in a way that feels right to you, the player. 

Enshrouded is an ambitious product from a small studio that has opted to release the game in Early Access on Steam to begin with, with plans for console ports coming at a later yet still unannounced date. Despite just releasing into Early Access, Enshrouded already has a Mostly Positive rating on Steam, with more than 2600 reviews at the time of writing.