New co-op survival game Enshrouded has been picking up Steam in the past few days, as the survival-crafting action RPG has not just pretty compelling combat but a really nice, rather in-depth building system. Per our predictions last year, Enshrouded’s impressive system of terrain alteration and building is giving rise to some truly delightful community creations. I’ve rounded up some of the best I’ve seen in the handful of days since release.
In a hole in the ground there lived a Flameborn. Not a nasty, dirty, we hole, but one that was pretty neat because on the exterior, creator Guntoucher gave it that nice tudor style look, but on the inside it’s hall of hardwood flooring with detailed stonework atop the walls.
It’s important to have a cozy place to stay in Enshrouded, because as we recently discovered sleep is one of its coolest features.
Mah House from r/Enshrouded
I’ll admit that the above one wouldn’t normally draw too much attention for me. I like a huge, rambling wooden house, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t often call them out as exceptional. But this one I like because of the little details—the elevated entrance, the covered way where it would perhaps lean out over the road. And the person who lives in it. A little grey-haired, witch-hatted weirdo. A delightful fit of character to place.
Hunter’s house. So much fun doing this one, the skulls was like sculping, but it took me much more than the blacksmiths house. from r/Enshrouded
This hunter’s house is perhaps one of the most impressive builds I’ve seen, not for the rather spare interior, but for the sculptural exterior. Built for the NPC of the same name, creator danilodlr has used the pickaxe to sculpt boulders into huge, toothy dragon’s heads flaking the doorways to the interior. The building itself is crowned with a massive mammoth spine and head, also hand-sculpted, all of which is lit by torches at night. This is the kind of build that excites me for Enshrouded’s future.
The video above, of a three-player hideout built inside a mountain, is some truly inspiring work. The terraced exterior of the mountain home is carved with room for gardens and beehives, while the inner hall is decorated with pillars and stonework alongside perfect niches for the NPCs to inhabit. It’s really cool stuff at the peak of what’s available right now in Enshrouded—it reminds me of the crazy fortresses you see in Indian action-fantasy epics like Baahubali.
Who among us does not love a great, grey stone lump of a castle? A nigh-impregnable fortress with defended courtyard-after-courtyard? Certainly not this creator, who has earned my undying respect as a castle-appreciator par excellence.
Enshrouded’s map is littered with ruined towns of the fallen kingdom, and while I’ve seen a few builds take advantage of the wrecks I’ve yet to see one so fully restore and reinvigorate them like this one. I love how it uses the secret sliding door to come and go from a basement crafting area. If you don’t think you’re very creative, then this might be the kind of build to get you started on that path—restore and recreate rather than start from a blank patch of earth.
As a bona fide Stave Church Enjoyer I think that the Valheim community did the world a great service by introducing people to a giant, cool way of building a pointy monumental structure. Delighted that I’ll get to see them in survival craft games for decades to come.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a very impressive build that, in the end, looks quite normal. Very nice. 10/10 house, no notes.
