Crafting is a big part of Enshrouded, Keen Games' upcoming survival action RPG set in the fantasy world of Embervale. While survival and combat are significant elements, crafting also stands as a big component in the game's genre-meshing approach. The voxel-based graphics also look like they could offer players near-endless opportunities to craft all kinds of creative structures, from towering skulls to formidable castles and even something as out-there for a fantasy realm as a replica of the Eiffel Tower.
Game ZXC recently spoke with Enshrouded creative director Antony Christoulakis about Crafting in the upcoming title and how it works compared to other games in the survival crafting genre. He also discussed the studio's early access plans and what they hope to learn from the Enshrouded community.
Enshrouded: Giving Players Creative Freedom When Crafting and Building
Games with immersive crafting systems can be a big lure for many players; it takes only a glance at the hugely creative, player-created ship structures like Mass Effect's Normandy in Starfield or player-constructed fortresses in Valheim to grasp the creative potential players have when given enough tools. Although set in a post-apocalyptic, medieval fantasy realm rather than space, Enshrouded offers an extensive base-building system with massive opportunities for creative player freedom.
In addition to transforming the landscape in any direction, players can craft bases to their liking using Enshrouded's voxel-based graphics build system, which Christoulakis explained offers players a lot of creative freedom "compared to prop space building." Voxel building is also something he said worked well in the studio's previous sandbox action RPG, Portal Knights, which was received well by the community. The "building aspect" is also something Christoulakis is looking forward to, with the team aiming to encourage its community to share their creations by leaning more hevily into the "creative side" of building versus the "defensive side."
Enshrouded Early Access Plans
While Enshrouded focuses more on immersive crafting gameplay, it's possible more and better defensive creation could get added in the future, as Christoulakis discussed the possibility of including base invasions,
We also got questions about base invasions, and we think it's definitely a cool thing to add. This won't be part of our early access plan right now, but definitely something we want to integrate into the game at some point. But the reason why we skipped that for now - I thought about it quite a lot - is it counters the creative aspect of building a bit because enemies can constantly destroy the stuff you've built. It might be frustrating, ot you're forced to build bunkers, more defensive structures, and find the maximum to achieve that goal.
When discussing Enshrouded's early access plans, Christoulakis emphasized the importance of obtaining community feedback and seeing what the community likes, such as whether they might want richer farming for their base architecture constructions. While no specific early access date was revealed, Christoulakis assured the studio is eager to develop Enshrouded "...hopefully years to come beyond early access" and explained their general approach. As he said,
...it's really up to the feedback we get during early access. We just closed alpha and beta now. We got a lot of good feedback that also informs us what we still need to do for early access. But it's really our aim to work together as a community, take in a lot of feedback, and try to figure out how our roadmap that we have internally matches with what people actually want.
Enshrouded is currently in development.