It has been a big year for survival crafting titles leaving early access. We have had Palworld, RuneScape Dragonwilds, and Valheim all go live since early June, and now Enshrouded is joining in with its big 1.0 update. I’m going to have to check if I even have anything left in early access in my Steam library at this point… oh, sorry, I didn’t see you over there Stars Reach.
Enshrouded 1.0 is now available
The successes so far this year has made me modify my opinion on leaving early access. I had previously been of the opinion that you don’t get a second launch, that once you are in early access you’ve shipped and that leaving early access becomes something of a non-event.
However, the three titles I mentioned, plus Project: Gorgon, have proven that is not necessarily the case. It still happens… probably much more often than not. For example, Astroneer also left early access back in June and didn’t hit a new player peak or break into the top twenty for Steam sales on doing so. And I suspect there are some early access titles out there right now that are in for hard times, launch or not. What becomes of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen seems to be in doubt of late.
But the right quality title with the right buzz and the right launch plan… I think going out on new platforms is a strong play in that regard, along with a big new content update… can make the magic happen.
What makes up the magic for a second launch is easy to spot… being popular in early access is a good start, along with getting a lot of press… but harder to define when it comes to trying to repeat the formula.
Anyway, that is fodder for another blog post I am sure; what makes early access work or some such. This post is about Enshrouded, which has joined the early access to live success club, seeing a pretty significant spike in users. It has never been Valheim levels of popular, and it remains to be seen if it will get a significant boost in sales, but it has already had its highest level of players since its first week of early access back in January of 2024.
As for what came with the 1.0 launch, the release notes are quite long, but they open up with this:
The full game world is now accessible. Yes, all of it. Go touch all the new grass. This includes the new biome, Cinder’s Cradle, filling out the northern regions of the previously inaccessible areas of the map, but also new areas bordering the previous biomes and previously locked dungeons and areas. The area sits between Blackmire and Veilwater Basin in terms of size, and brings 12 new Shroud Roots.
A new biome, more space to explore, and no more barriers keeping eager early access players out of areas they were not suppose to see yet sounds like a pretty good initial statement.
You have nine seconds to comply!
As a crafting survival title I do recommend it. Its mechanics are quite good, and the base building options are extensive, while the hand crafted world is amazing. If the procedurally generated worlds of Valheim feel too empty for you, the world of Enshrouded may be much more your thing.
The catch is, of course, that replay value suffers somewhat as once you know where everything is a bit of the mystery goes out of the world. I am not saying it doesn’t deserve another play through. So much has changed and so much has been added that it would be a mostly new game for our group. But we’ve also moved on a bit after having done a complete play through back in 2024 and then a follow up run in 2025.
Maybe some day we’ll go back. I want to say that we’re off to new things… but we’re off to WoW Forever, which is arguably a revision of an old standard.
Oh, there was one big fix I was looking for that got in with 1.0.
Shader compilation times after updates or GPU driver installations have been significantly reduced.
Every time there was even a minor update… or a video card driver update… we would have to sit through the recompiling of shaders, which could take some time.
Shaders compiling
I think Bung reported a 30 minute wait after one big update.
Anyway, that is my quick summary of the release, though it barely does it justice. The release highlight video runs past eight minutes just touching on new things.
Again, I recommend the title. We certainly got our money’s worth out of it in enjoyment even during early access when we were limited to just level 35. Now you can go up to level 50, have a some new biomes to explore, new puzzles to solve, and more gliding. Seriously, gliding… getting up on a tall tower or other high place and just sailing off for a distant spot… is one of the highlights of the game.
Related:
- Keen – Enshrouded About Page
- Steam – Enshrouded Store Page
- Keen – Release trailer and Changelog
- Keen – Changelog for Hotfix 1.0.0.1