I have yet to be completely burnt out in punching trees.

More seriously, I think Valheim was a near perfect swing at the concepts of pure exploration meeting PvE challenges. The procedural world meant that it could only be self-directed – it is incredibly hard to implement a quest/complex narrative if the world is random. This is one of the reasons I enjoy Minecraft – you are given some simple tools and an infinite world to explore. You make of it what you want. Valheim’s large issues stemmed from the rather massive difficulty spikes and limited base building tools. Once it hits release, I’m sure to give it another go.

Enshrouded is in the same vein of game – build a base, collect things, build things, collect more things and die a lot along the way. The key difference is that the world is fixed and built with purpose. The tower in your world is in the same place as mine. This reduced randomness is a double-edged sword.

High level quick thoughts:

• Base building is simple and effective. Very impressive. Tip: build as high as you can.
• The game looks great, renders well, and performs impressively. The map is large. The map tool itself auto-marks multiple spots of interest, but the ability for you to make markers is very limited. Let me add a label.
• Monster variety is nice.
• There are multiple types of dungeons, they are really well done.
• Grappling is so-so, more to cheese out enemies. You’ll trigger it by accident more often than not.
• Gliding is really cool and with a very vertical map, essential for travel.
  • There are 5 very large towers that cover the map. Gliding from the top of one clears a ton of the map.
• When you die (a lot), you leave a marker with items from your bag. Items in your hotbar stay with you. Inconvenience rather than penalty. I’ve died more here than in Valheim. Way more.
• There’s a level structure to the world, from 1 to 30. I’m at the midpoint of that now, and quite simply, levels matter a LOT. 
• Your levels give skill points (or through special dungeons). By level 15 you’ll have ample points for the core things you want (double jump is life, water aura gives life).
• Get the 5 NPCs ASAP, they open new crafting options and quests to move forward. Bags, gliders, grappling hooks are all based on NPC quests.
• Quests provide direction, and the NPC quests are mandatory for progress. There are numerous bugs if you skip ahead. Quests are based on the world, not the player. Major implications for multiplayer.
• Crafting is dependent on multiple components and steps. Finding some of the components could use more clarity – Amber and Shroud Sacks are the first “roadblock”.
• Combat is unbalanced, especially for melee. 
  • Armor doesn’t work. Enemy AI is insanely aggressive, attacks with multiples (insects particularly attack 6+ at a time), and can stun you. Bosses deal absolutely massive damage, especially in melee range, and counter if you are at range… so you need to be mid-range. 
  • Shields/parry are mandatory. 
  • Weapon damage is very low, even if you put a lot of effort into skills. Wands are currently the only viable option as a result.
  • Magic has casting time and ammo, which could work if it did way more damage. There are infinite ammo options that do less damage and cost more mana, that are absolutely better options.
  • Weapon durability is very low. By the mid-point you’ll need to repair more often than empty your bags.
  • Weapons are 98% acquired through random numbers in chests found in the world. They respawn on logon. You will want to “farm” at level weapons every 5 levels.
• Base building is limited to flame size (which is specific to a single base) and flame power (which is shared). Size impacts how much space you can build with, which is rather meaningless until the mid-point. Power has massive implications and is a critical priority
  • It impacts how long you can stay in the shroud
  • It impacts the difficulty of the shroud you can enter (red shroud kills you until this is upgraded, preventing map progress)
  • It lets you create more bases, which allow world teleportation. Bases act as respawn points too. It goes 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8. 
  • It gives character attributes, which are very secondary.

In most respects, Enshrouded has taken an iterative approach to the survival PvE genre. There are many great ideas here, and the world feels alive. Balancing combat is a numbers thing, which is “easily” fixed as compared to building entirely new systems. There is a lot of potential here, and with some tweaks can really provide more of the “do what you want” feeling that these games thrive upon. Worth a peek for sure.