Enshrouded left early access on 15 October after almost three years on PC, and plenty of players are only now jumping in, on PC and on PS5 alike. Keen Games’ survival game lets you wander off wherever you like from the very first minutes, which can leave newcomers unsure where to start. A handful of habits will save you hours: the altar to build straight away, the tools worth crafting first and the way you manage your time in the Shroud. This guide draws on the studio’s own patch notes and on established community guides, with an eye on everything version 1.0 has changed about the early game.
At a glance
Keen Games recommends starting a fresh world to get the most out of 1.0.
Upgrade your Flame Altar early, as it widens your base and buys you more time in the Shroud.
The grappling hook and the glider should top your crafting list.
Keen Games would rather you started a new save
If you still have an Enshrouded world from early access, that’s the first decision to make. As French site GameWave reports, Keen Games itself recommends starting a new game for 1.0, even though old saves still load without any major bugs. Progression and the world itself have been rebalanced, and a well-advanced save would simply skip past most of those changes.
Sticking with your old world? Then bear one thing in mind. According to Keen Games’ full 1.0 changelog on Steam, the skill tree is reset on existing saves. Spend your skill points again before heading out, or you’ll be roaming around with a far weaker character than you think.
Your Flame Altar comes before anything else in Enshrouded
Enshrouded asks you to place a Flame Altar within minutes, and the rest of your base grows from it. The altar sets the area you’re allowed to build in, takes in the survivors you rescue, works as a fast travel point back home and lets you reset your skill points. Every altar upgrade widens the building zone around it, so it pays to do it early.
Strengthening the Flame itself matters even more. It extends how long you can stay in the Shroud, raises your attributes and lets you place more altars, with each level calling for an item found in shrines dotted around the map. With 1.0, Keen Games has raised the cap to 15 Flame Altars, plenty to scatter waypoints across Embervale.
Smash everything, because 1.0 added chests to the Springlands
Almost every piece of scenery in Enshrouded can be broken. Tables, chairs and pots all give up wood, string or scrap, and it’s worth getting into the habit early. On top of that, Keen Games has added more loot chests to the Springlands and Revelwood, the first two regions, so you can try out more weapons and gear before the difficulty climbs.
Your backpack will fill up fast as a result. Craft a storage chest or two as soon as your workbench is down. Hang on to any gold coins too: they now turn up in chests all over Embervale, and some survivors will swap them for items, mostly cosmetic ones.
Craft the grappling hook and the glider first
Enshrouded is a very vertical game, full of towers, cliffs and ruins perched up high. Once you have a basic shelter, the grappling hook and the glider are the two tools to chase. Some parts of the main story are simply out of reach without the grappling hook, while the glider saves a huge amount of time and spares you fall damage.
Version 1.0 makes both more useful in a fight as well. Hooking towards an enemy now costs less stamina, and foes you run away from regain their health gradually rather than snapping straight back to full. So gliding out of a fight to catch your breath is now a genuine option.
Treat your time in the Shroud as a resource
In Enshrouded, the Shroud is where the best rewards are, and also where things go wrong fastest. A timer appears as soon as you step in, and you need to get out before it runs dry. Good news for newcomers, though: hourglass capsules are far more common in 1.0, and each one adds roughly 70% more time, according to Keen Games’ patch notes.
Go in on a full stomach. Food and drink boost your stats, and a proper meal before an expedition makes a real difference, as we found in our Enshrouded review. And keep an eye out for Enshrouded’s Shroud Roots: destroying them earns you skill points, and 1.0 adds six more near the edges of the map.
PC and PS5 players can’t share a world
Enshrouded plays perfectly well solo, but plenty of people pick it up with friends. Crossplay isn’t available at the 1.0 launch, as Keen Games’ technical director confirmed, according to server host XGamingServer. On PC, a single world holds up to 16 players; on PS5, groups top out at 8, with PS Plus required.
The only bridge between the two platforms is Adventure Sharing, which lets you visit worlds uploaded by other players on either PC or PS5. The Xbox Series version is due in spring 2027. If your friends play on a different machine, agree on a platform before buying the game, which costs £31.49 on Steam.
Upcoming release dates and major updates are tracked in our games calendar, which you can filter by platform.