Open World & viel Zerstörung: Enshrouded ist nach Palworld gleich der nächste Spaß! - Test / Review

GameStar

27 Jan 202413:03

Summary

TLDRIn January 2023, 'Shrouded' by the German developer KeinGames emerged as a promising contender in the survival game genre, following its highly successful demo. As of January 24, the game entered Early Access, inviting players into its vast, rugged world for resource gathering, boss battles, and base building. Shrouded stands out with its voxel-based holistic engine, allowing deeper world interaction than seen in games like Valheim, with almost everything destructible. Players can build deep tunnels and massive sky castles, thanks to the game's disregard for static physics. Besides its aesthetic superiority over Valheim, Shrouded offers a glider for exploration, reminiscent of Zelda's paragliders, and integrates puzzles within its ruins. With a rich talent tree blending magic, warrior, and rogue abilities, and NPC allies for questing, the game promises over 50 to 100 hours of adventure across diverse biomes. Despite its expansive freedom, the narrative struggles for coherence, relying on players to piece together the story from scattered texts. Shrouded's ambition to evolve with community feedback and expand its world further positions it as a unique survival RPG experience, distinct from inspirations like Valheim and Zelda.

Takeaways

📚 'Chrouded' from German developer KeinGames made waves with a highly successful demo in 2023 and entered Early Access on January 24, offering a massive, resource-rich game world for players to explore, defeat bosses, and build bases.
🔨 The game's voxel-based 'holistic Engine' allows for deep interaction with the environment, surpassing even the Viking hit 'Valheim' in terms of destructibility, including the ability to dig tunnels and construct large castles in the air.
🏁 With a more attractive visual presentation than 'Valheim', 'Chrouded' introduces a practical glider for navigation, reminiscent of 'The Legend of Zelda' series on the Switch, enhancing exploration and travel.
🧙‍♂️ 'Chrouded' incorporates a rich talent tree that mixes mage, warrior, and rogue talents, and allows players to gather a team of five NPC characters to embark on quests and uncover the game's lore.
🛡️ The game features an omnipresent miasma fog that adds a layer of challenge, requiring players to manage their time effectively in hazardous areas, while also unraveling the mystery of the fallen kingdom's demise.
🏗 'Chrouded' offers an expansive world with diverse biomes, from lush high meadows to barren wastelands, filled with ruins, fortifications, and mysteries, promising 50 to 100 hours of adventure content in its Early Access version.
🚧 Strategic placement of fast travel points is key, as players have the freedom to place these points themselves, adding a layer of strategy to exploration and base building.
🔬 The game encourages creativity in base construction, with a wide range of building materials and the ability to significantly alter the landscape within the radius of 'flame altars' to ensure permanent changes.
📝 'Chrouded' offers a unique storytelling approach, relying on players to discover over 100 text documents to piece together the game's narrative, presenting a challenge in understanding the full story.
💪 Despite some areas needing refinement, such as combat difficulty and clearer quest guidance, 'Chrouded' stands out as a unique survival RPG with a strong emphasis on player freedom and creativity.

Q & A

What is the name of the survival game developed by the German studio KeinGames that gained attention with a successful demo in 2023?
-The game is called Shrouded.
When was Shrouded released in Early Access, allowing players to gather resources, defeat bosses, and build bases?
-Shrouded was released in Early Access on January 24.
What unique feature does Shrouded's voxel-based holistic engine offer to players compared to the Viking hit Valheim?
-Shrouded's engine allows deeper interaction with the game world, including nearly everything being destructible and the ability to dig deep tunnels and build huge air castles without statics playing a role.
How does Shrouded incorporate elements from popular games like Zelda on the Switch?
-Shrouded includes a glider for traversing the world, similar to the paraglider in Zelda, and integrates numerous small puzzle challenges reminiscent of Zelda's gameplay.
What role do NPCs play in Shrouded, and how do they enhance the gameplay?
-NPCs in Shrouded contribute to the gameplay by offering over 75 quests, helping to uncover the game world's secrets, and providing access to crafting disciplines once housed properly.
What is the Miasma in Shrouded, and how does it affect the player's exploration?
-The Miasma is a pervasive, harmful grey fog filling lower areas of the game world. Players are initially highly susceptible to its toxic effects but can explore it for limited times due to a protective blessing.
How does the game encourage strategic placement of fast travel points by players?
-Players can place fast travel points themselves in the form of flame altars, allowing strategic access to various locations and resources within the game world.
What construction and customization options are available for players' homes in Shrouded?
-Players can collect dozens of building materials to customize the appearance and interior of their homes, with incentives for diverse decoration like the 'well-rested' buff.
How does Shrouded's talent tree and class system contribute to its gameplay depth?
-The talent tree allows mixing of mage, warrior, and rogue talents, enabling players to create unique character builds and encouraging team coordination in multiplayer to balance skills.
What future updates were planned by the developers for Shrouded during its Early Access period?
-Developers planned to expand the map with new biomes, enemies, and resources, increase the level cap and talent tree, enhance building options, and incorporate player feedback to improve the game.

Outlines

00:00

🎮 Introduction to 'Chrouded' and Its Unique Features

The survival game genre has a new contender named 'Chrouded', developed by the German studio KeinGames, which made a splash with its highly successful demo in 2023. Since January 24, it has been available in Early Access, offering players a vast, rugged game world to explore. The game allows for deep interactions with the environment thanks to its voxel-based holistic engine, enabling almost everything to be destructible. Players can dig tunnels and build massive air castles without worrying about statics, a feature that sets it apart from the Viking hit Valheim. 'Chrouded' also boasts a more attractive visual design than Valheim and introduces a glider for navigation, reminiscent of the new Zelda titles on the Switch. The game incorporates puzzle elements in the ruins of a fallen kingdom and features a rich talent tree mixing mage, warrior, and rogue talents. Players can gather a team of five NPCs for various quests, uncovering the story of the ancient realm's downfall and the mysterious miasma fog. The game promises about 50 to 100 hours of adventure in its Early Access version, which currently includes 40% of the planned world.

05:01

🌍 Expansive World and Gameplay Mechanics

The game world of 'Chrouded' extends across various biomes, each offering unique landscapes and challenges. Players can glide from mountains and towers to uncover the map and attack enemy bases, with the game encouraging exploration and strategic base assaults. The former capital city offers layered combat experiences, leading up to boss fights that influence the player's miasma resistance, crucial for exploring more toxic areas of the game world. 'Chrouded' guides players through an open world with a rough direction, centered around upgrades obtained from building a customizable home base. Crafting plays a significant role, with five disciplines intertwined to create a logical and short manufacturing chain. The game also features a sleeping mechanic to fast-forward through the darker, more dangerous nights. In cooperative play, the game scales combat difficulty based on the number of players involved, encouraging teamwork and strategic planning in talent tree development.

10:02

🛠 Challenges and Future Developments

Despite offering great freedom in exploration, base building, and skill development, 'Chrouded' lacks a clear narrative direction, hiding its potentially fascinating story behind collectible texts that must be found and read in sequence. The game also faces issues with equipment progression, as players can unintentionally skip levels by acquiring high-level loot early on. 'Chrouded' is demanding in terms of hardware requirements, with performance issues noted on lower-end systems. Despite these challenges, the game has captivated players with its mix of survival and role-playing elements, promising more content and improvements during its Early Access period. The developers aim to expand the game world, increase the level cap and talent tree, and enhance building options, all while incorporating player feedback to refine the game experience.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Survival Games

Survival games are a genre of video games that focus on managing the player's resources in a hostile environment to survive. This genre often includes gathering resources, crafting items, exploring an open world, and sometimes fighting against enemies or the environment itself. In the context of the script, 'Shrouded' is introduced as a new entry into this genre, emphasizing its expansive, interactive world and the depth of gameplay mechanics it offers, such as resource gathering, base building, and boss fights, all hallmarks of survival games.

💡Early Access

Early Access is a funding model in the video game industry where developers release a playable version of their game to the public before it's fully completed. This allows players to buy, play, and provide feedback during the development process. 'Shrouded' is mentioned as entering Early Access, indicating that the game is playable but still in development, with the developers planning to use player feedback to refine the game.

💡Holistic Engine

The 'holistic engine' refers to the game engine technology used by 'Shrouded' to enable deep interactions with the game world. This engine allows for voxel-based environments where nearly everything is destructible, and players can significantly alter the landscape, unlike in 'Valheim'. The term highlights the technical foundation that enables the game's unique world manipulation features, such as digging tunnels and building massive structures without the constraints of static physics.

💡Talent Tree

A talent tree is a feature in many games that allows players to customize their character's abilities according to their play style. In 'Shrouded', players can mix and match talents from mage, warrior, and rogue classes, enhancing the role-playing element and strategic depth. The talent tree in this game is described as lush, indicating a wide variety of skills and abilities that players can explore and combine to tailor their gameplay experience.

💡Miasma

Miasma in 'Shrouded' is described as a toxic fog that fills lower-lying areas of the game world, posing a constant threat to the player. The presence of miasma adds a layer of environmental hazard, requiring players to manage their exposure time and find ways to resist or mitigate its effects. This concept is central to exploring the game's world, as navigating through or around miasma-infested areas is crucial for progression.

💡NPCs

Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are controlled by the game's AI and play various roles, from allies to vendors or quest givers. In 'Shrouded', NPCs are integral to the player's experience, offering quests, joining the player's base, and unlocking new crafting disciplines. The interaction with NPCs enriches the game's world, providing depth to the story and additional gameplay mechanics, such as crafting and base management.

💡Biomes

Biomes refer to different ecological areas within a game world, each with unique landscapes, climates, and sometimes distinct flora and fauna. 'Shrouded' features several biomes, such as lush high meadows and dense, dark thickets, contributing to the game's environmental diversity. Exploring these biomes is a key part of the gameplay, as each offers unique challenges, resources, and secrets to discover.

💡Crafting

Crafting is a common mechanic in survival games that allows players to create items, tools, and structures from gathered resources. In 'Shrouded', crafting is described as a multifaceted system involving different disciplines like blacksmithing and potion brewing. This system is crucial for progression, enabling players to craft equipment, build their base, and prepare for challenges in the game's world.

💡Co-op Gameplay

Co-op, or cooperative gameplay, involves players working together to achieve common goals within a game. 'Shrouded' supports co-op gameplay, allowing friends to explore, build, and fight together, enhancing the social and strategic aspects of the game. This feature multiplies the fun, as players can share resources, strategies, and experiences, and tackle challenges that might be too difficult alone.

💡Quests

Quests are tasks or series of tasks that players can complete in exchange for rewards and progression within the game world. In 'Shrouded', quests are given by NPCs and lead players to explore the most intriguing locations of the game, uncovering the story of the fallen kingdom and the challenges that lie within.

Highlights

Vor dem Pokémon, Ark und Factorio-Überflieger, stand Shruded im Rampenlicht des Survival-Genre.

Entwickelt vom deutschen Studio Keingames, erlangte Shruded durch eine erfolgreiche Demo 2023 Aufmerksamkeit.

Shruded bietet eine riesige, zerklüftete Spielwelt für das Sammeln von Rohstoffen, Bosskämpfe und den Bau von Basen.

Die wxelbasierte Holistic Engine ermöglicht tiefgreifende Eingriffe in die Spielwelt, einschließlich dem Bau von Tunneln und Luftschlössern.

Optisch übertrifft Shruded den Wikinger-Hit Valheim und bietet einen praktischen Gleiter für die Fortbewegung.

Das Spiel zieht Inspiration von beliebten Titeln wie den neuen Zelda-Teilen auf der Switch.

Ein umfangreicher Talentbaum vereint Magier-, Krieger- und Schurkentalente.

Das Spiel enthält über 75 Quests, die in eine fesselnde Hintergrundgeschichte eingebettet sind.

Shruded präsentiert eine ständige Bedrohung durch Miasma, eine giftige Nebelschicht, die taktische Überlegungen erfordert.

Die Early Access-Version umfasst bereits 40% der geplanten 64 Quadratkilometer großen Welt.

Shruded bietet eine Spielzeit von 50 bis 100 Stunden mit vielfältigen Biomen und zahlreichen Entdeckungen.

Veränderungen in der Spielwelt sind dauerhaft, solange sie im Radius eines Flammenaltars erfolgen.

Spieler können ihr Heim selbst gestalten, was Boni wie den ausgeruht Buff mit sich bringt.

Shruded setzt auf ein Koop-System, bei dem die Schwierigkeit mit der Anzahl der Spieler skaliert.

Die Entwickler planen, den Early Access innerhalb eines Jahres zu beenden und dabei eng mit der Community zusammenzuarbeiten.