Enshrouded has had me feeling some type of way since Keen Games’ initial reveal of the blended survival RPG experience. It takes all of the crafting and exploring mechanics we love from games like Rust or Valheim, combining them with combat and medieval fantasy vibes seen in FromSoftware’s timeless icons such as Dark Souls or Elden Ring. We can soon explore its vast world for ourselves during the Steam Next Fest, thanks to a free playable demo.
Steam’s event is shaping up to be a banger with upcoming PC games like Enshrouded offering hours of in-game time pre-launch. According to Keen Games, the demo will let you form your gameplay experience to suit your “personal adventuring style,” whether that be through building, exploring, fighting, leveling, or terraforming. You’ll also get to craft, construct, and engage in combat with friends in Enshrouded’s co-op play, albeit “within the pre-defined demo area.”
“This is our first public demo,” the developer writes, “and we hope it will offer you several hours of fun!” If you’re interested in checking the demo out, you can soon. Starting Monday, October 9, you can delve deep into Enshrouded’s punishing world and start your virtual life as the Flameborn with the help of a mysterious entity known as the ‘Flame.’
The game’s description gives me major Elden Ring vibes, especially with the whole Flameborn-fighting-deadly-fog premise. It feels like a nice balance between combat-heavy RPGs like it and crafting-survival experiences such as Rust, but we won’t know for sure until the demo drops. Right now, it’s the 25th most-wishlisted game according to Steam statistics.
That position is one out of literal thousands, so it looks like a lot of us will be hitting the Enshrouded demo up when it emerges during the Steam Next Fest. It’s ahead of some upcoming triple-A behemoths on the wishlist chart like Dragon’s Dogma 2, Silent Hill 2, and even the recently revealed Diablo 4 Steam release. Keen Games previously launched Portal Knights, one of my favorite games, so I’m certainly hyped myself.
If you’re just as obsessed with the Middle Ages as I am, then you should browse through our line-up of these other great medieval games. For a more building-based experience, you can look around our roundup of these other creativity-inducing crafting games while you wait to hop into Enshrouded.