Enshrouded is a new survival game that has a little something for everyone. Whether you want to focus on the more managerial aspects of survival games and build your own little utopia out of sticks and mud, wish to venture out into the deadly wastes of the Shroud in search of monsters and riches galore, or simply want to explore a beautiful fantasy world full of secrets, Enshrouded has you covered. With its robust base-building tools, in-depth combat mechanics and easy-to-pick-up gameplay loop. there’s plenty here to love for survival fans and newcomers alike.
Of course, with so many things to do, there are a lot of little details that some Flameborn may miss as they begin their journey into the Shroud and beyond. Do you want to know where to find some of the best gear early on in the game? Are you unsure of how the food buff system works? Or do you just want some advice on how to time your parries so you can expertly fend off even the toughest of foes? We’re here to help. Some of these tips are simply little time savers and reminders, whereas others are massive parts of the game which can be easily missed.
Here are the 10 best tips and tricks you need to know about Enshrouded, a new action-adventure survival title by Keen Games.
Want to learn more about Enshrouded? Check out our preview here on KeenGamer.
Get the Glider and the Grappling Hook ASAP
Our first tip when it comes to Enshrouded is going to be about what goals you should prioritise in the early game. To be more specific, we recommend that you b-line crafting the two most important items for navigation and traversal: the Glider and the Grappling Hook. If you’ve seen any promotional footage for Enshrouded before release then it’s hard not to remember either of these items, as they both featured extensively in several trailers.
The Glider and the Grappling Hook are two sides to the traversal coin when it comes to Enshrouded. At a baseline, your character isn’t very mobile and has the stamina of a small child, meaning that you won’t be getting anywhere fast. That changes with these items, though: the Glider allows you to effortlessly take the skies, letting you skip massive portions of the land or arrive safely from great heights, whereas the Grappling Hook makes it so that you can more naturally move around the overworld, taking special shortcuts designated by silver buckles.
Both of these items are crazy useful and should be your number one priority if you want to get the most out of Enshrouded as quickly as possible. If you want an in-depth guide into how to get the Glider and Grappling Hook early, including where to easily find each of the materials you need for both items, check out our Enshrouded guide here on KeenGamer.
Glider and the Grappling Hook
How to Get Better at Parrying
Some have compared combat in Enshrouded to a soft-Soulslike and while I don’t think the game goes that far, it is way more action-focused than many of its contemporaries. One of the main ways this prioritisation of combat can be seen is in your ability to parry most attacks in the game, allowing you to negate damage while filling up the opponent’s stagger bar for some easy damage. At first, parrying attacks may seem like pure luck but there is an easy tell to keep an eye out for which will make anyone a parry God.
Sometimes, during an enemy’s attack animation, there are a few frames where their weapon will glow. When you see this glow, raise your shield or weapon in a block: if you timed it right, you will have parried the enemy’s attack, leaving them stunned for a moment and lowering their stagger bar. Some attacks are harder to parry than others, of course, but most of the attacks in Enshrouded are capable of being parried.
Once you know this very obvious tell, parrying, and combat in general, becomes much easier and more manageable. The weapon glow is way easier to see on certain enemies, such as the spear-wielding humanoids that you’ll encounter in the Shroud early on, so use them as target practice. Wait for the attack, watch for the glow, parry when you see it and then punish. Master that and not much can stand in your way in Enshrouded.
Watch for the Blue Glow When Parrying
The Workbench Doubles as a Repair Kit
Tools and weapons in Enshrouded all have internal durability, indicated by the bar below the item’s icon in your hotbar. When the bar is green, it is at peak efficiency, which slowly becomes yellow the more the item is used. Then, if the bar completely runs out, the tool will break, leaving you down an Axe, Sword or whatever other equipment item you’re using.
To counteract this effect, items with durability can be repaired, restoring them to pristine condition. The main way Enshrouded advertises this repair mechanic to you is via the Repair Kits, which can be used to repair items while out in the field, but the far superior method of repairing your equipment is the Workbench. Not only does interacting with a Workbench allow you to craft many wonderful things, but it also instantly restores the durability of all the items in your inventory to full, with no extra cost required.
While true that the Workbench can only be placed, and so can only be used, while within the confines of a Flame Altar, the pros far outweigh any cons. So long as you’re returning to your Workbench every so often, you’ll never have to worry about broken equipment again. This can come in especially handy for Epic and Legendary gear, such as the Tainted Axe you get from killing Elixir Well bosses: if you remember to keep your blades sharp at the Workbench, you’ll have a super powerful weapon that’s always at peak efficiency.
Using the Workbench Repairs Items
Delete, Not Drop
Your initial carrying capacity in Enshrouded is pretty small, only capable of carrying 40 unique objects (24 in your Backpack and 16 in your Hotbar). While it is possible to get backpack extensions, you’ll likely be stuck with this small weight load for some time. This is why you need to know one small, annoying quirk of Enshrouded’s items: you cannot drop anything you’ve previously picked up.
Unlike most other survival games, items in Enshrouded cannot be ejected back into the overworld, only erased from your inventory. If you desperately need that Metal Scrap on the ground and have a full inventory, tough luck, it’s time to permanently delete either that stack of books or that rusty sword you’ve kept and never used. Coming from other similar games where the overworld is just as much of a pocket as the ones on your person, it can be a big adjustment, especially when overworld items disappear after a short time.
The main way to get around this limitation is to simply ensure that you have an abundant amount of storage options at your Base. Chests are a relatively cheap option for storing your items, only costing 3 String and 6 Twigs. While it may be a touch tedious to continually go back to your base each time you’re nearing maximum capacity, it’s better than the alternative and may be an excuse to invest more into building your own small slice of paradise… which is hopefully a paradise filled with chests.
You Cannot Drop Items, Only Delete Them
Beware of Idling
One of the most important macro details to mention when it comes to Enshrouded is that time does not stop when opening your menu. No matter if you’re pausing the game directly, opening your menu to check your gear, or standing at a Workbench crafting, the world will continue to spin. This means that the time of day will continue to tick by, plants and items you’ve previously foraged will continue to respawn, and creatures will continue lumbering around the overworld.
This may not seem like a big issue at first but becomes slightly less manageable when you realise that enemies can come and attack you while you’re in your menu, potentially landing a sneaky hit which can lead to an unfortunate death. The main place this issue will arise is at your base: despite the prescience of the Flame Altar, enemies will be unfettered and storm right into your base, allowing them to get the drop on you as you’re gleefully building some dishes.
As such, ensure that you’re always in a safe spot when checking your gear or crafting. Keep an ear out whenever you need to dip into your menu while exploring, especially because you’ll often hear a wolf or monster shambling towards you before they manage to attack. Additionally, keep important items like food, weapons and tools on your hotbar and let resources stay in your backpack, making sure you’re always prepared to fight back, no matter what.
Time Never Stops
Best Places to Get Epic and Legendary Tier Loot
Loot in Enshrouded works off a rarity system, with higher rarity loot usually having better attack or the potential to learn more impactful passive abilities (which we’ll discuss shortly). Most of the weapons you can craft yourself, such as the Club, will be Common, denoted by a basic grey border. Items can be one of five rarities:
- Common (Grey)
- Uncommon (Green)
- Rare (Blue)
- Epic (Purple)
- Legendary (Orange)
If you’ve touched a looter in the last decade or so, these names and colours will be very familiar to you. The most important pieces of loot are going to be Epic or Legendary. These items are also the rarest to find, with it being likely that you’ll only come across a few scant pieces in your opening ten or so hours.
Enshrouded Item Rarity
If the idea of a super powerful Bow or Sword tickles your fancy and you want to find one early in the game, your best bet is to either head to an Elixir Well or one of the giant Towers. Elixir Wells are lost monuments within the Shroud, each of which is guarded by a monstrous boss. Manage to defeat that boss and, alongside purifying the nearby area, you’ll also get the Tainted Axe, a powerful tool which can be used in both combat and scavenging to great effect.
Meanwhile, the Towers are for the more puzzle-inclined as they feature less combat and more traversal challenges. Towers usually consist of several floors which you travel between via portals, with each floor usually having a chest or two tucked away somewhere. These chests have a high probability of dropping Epic or Legendary gear: the first Tower, for example, gave me the Wildwood Shortbow, a powerful Legendary weapon which became a mainstay of my build.
The Ominous Towers
The Importance of Shroud Protection
One of Enshrouded’s biggest selling points is the Shroud, a mysterious fog which has settled over much of the land, transforming whatever flora and fauna once resided there. There are pockets of the Shroud all across the map, with a much larger portion of the Shroud spreading across the whole map. Not only is the Shroud spooky and full of terrors, but it’s also directly harmful to your character’s health.
Stepping into the Shroud will cause a timer to appear at the top of your screen. This timer indicates how much Shroud Protection you have, which is a magical force protecting you from the fog’s most dangerous elements. It can’t do so forever, though, and if you let that timer reach zero, you will instantly die, no question asked. This means losing a large portion of the items in your backpack and getting sent back to your most recent checkpoint which, in most cases, will be your base. There are also deeper areas of the Shroud which are red: these portions of thew Deadly Shroud will take away your Shroud Protection near instantly.
Fortunately, there are ways to either regain Shroud Protection or earn more time within the Shroud. For the former, stepping out of the Shroud into an area with fresh air will cause your Shroud Protection to rapidly begin regenerating, completely reforming after only a few seconds. Additionally, there are strange artifacts hidden throughout the fog which will instantly refund some of your Shroud Protection, letting you push on for deeper exploration. As for permanently extending your timer, you can either upgrade your Flame Altar or spend Skill Points to learn the Inner Flame ability, both of which will increase the timer.
The Danger of the Shroud
Upgrade Your Equipment to Get Special Bonuses
Early in the guide when we were discussing gear rarity we brought up the fact that weapons can have special passive bonuses. After rescuing the Blacksmith in one of the first quests of the game, you can summon him back to your camp. Not only does he have a suite of unique items to craft but he can also Enhance Equipment, unlocking special bonuses on your equipment. To unlock these upgrades, you’ll need to pay the Blacksmith in Runes, a special and rare resource you’ll mainly acquire from defeating enemies, especially those from within the Shroud.
The amount of Enhancements a piece of equipment can get depends on its rarity, with Common-tier equipment only being able to take one Enhancement whereas Legendary equipment can take five. As for what the Enhancements actually do, they can increase your damage attributes, give you bonus Critical Hit Chance, add a status effect like Poison to your attacks, or even allow you to leech Health or Mana.
Investing in your powerful Epic and Legendary weapons can completely change the game and, if you pair this with the Workbench tip we gave earlier, you’ll never have to worry about them breaking, either. You’ll just have really good equipment which can set you up nicely for Enshrouded’s various combat challenges. Do not sleep on or neglect the benefits of enhancing your equipment, especially when it can drastically improve both combat and survival.
Enhance Equipment for Passive Bonuses
Food Buff Explanation
Like many survival games, Enshrouded is full of different kinds of food to consume for all manner of dietary plans. Whether you like the taste of cooked meat or fresh berries, there’s bound to be something tasty on the menu for any kind of Flameborn. Eating food does have a purpose outside of just roleplay value. Enshrouded doesn’t have a hunger mechanic per se, at least not one which interacts with the Rested system – the mechanic that dictates how much Stamina you have access to – but you can acquire various buffs from eating food.
Underneath your health and mana bars, you’ll see three empty circles. Eating a piece of food will fill that bar up with a food buff, meaning that you can have three unique food buffs on the go at any one time. The food buff you receive is dictated by the type of food you’re eating – for example, all types of meat will increase your Constitution stat, whereas mushrooms will increase your Intelligence – with higher quality food giving you better bonuses.
Food buffs are a great way to help ease you into Enshrouded’s world and improve your gameplay, especially when you know how to combine certain effects. If you’re playing a character who uses Wands but is a bit fragile, eating cooked meat alongside mushrooms will improve both your Constitution, giving you more health, as well as Intelligence, increasing your magic damage. There are a lot of effects like this in the game and you should try and cook and eat as much as you can to experiment. Just don’t eat raw meat, as it’ll give you the food poisoning debuff.
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- Cook Food to Improve Bonuses
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- Food Buffs in Action
Best Early Skill Point Investments
Finally, the last set of tips we’re going to give for Enshrouded have to do with Skills you should focus on getting first with your Skill Points. As you build stuff, slay things, find new areas, and complete quests, your character will level up, giving them Skill Points which they can spend on the Skill Tree.
All players start at the centre of the Skill Tree where there are nine skills to unlock. However, around the edge of the Skill Tree are different character archetypes with their own Skills: the Assassin branch focuses on increasing the Dexterity attribute and improving your ranged attacks with Bows, whereas the Tank is way more about improving Constituion and gaining better defences. You can choose to invest all of your points into a single tree, becoming adept at one major path, or you can decide to be a jack of all trades and become amazing at a lot of things.
In terms of the Skills that we recommend going after early on in Enshrouded, here’s our shortlist of the best Skills:
- Power Parry: Increases the enemy’s stun bar gain on parry attacks.
- Runner (Survivor): Sprinting speed increased by 10% and stamina consumption decreased by 10%.
- The Warrior’s Path (Warrior) / This is the Way (Wizard): When attacking with a melee weapon / magical weapon, all damage is increased by 10%
- Double Jump (Survivor / Athlete): Allows jumping a second time while airborne.
- Counterstrike (Trickster): After receiving damage there is a 20% chance to reflect 50% of the damage back to the attacker as fire damage.
- Updraft (Assassin / Trickster): Pressing the jump button while gliding will give you a small height boost. This skill can be used once per flight.
The Skill Tree
Those were our 10 best tips and tricks for Enshrouded.
Sanane Lan
Most useless tips in history.