The base-building system in this fantasy co-op survival RPG looks pretty incredible

Base in fantasy world
(Image credit: Keen Games)

If you'd asked me last week if I wanted to live in a house built on a boulder sculpted to look like a giant's skull I'd have said "No, not really," and then spent several hours wondering what was wrong with you. Why would you ask me that? That's a deeply weird way to start a conversation.

But after seeing the voxel-based building tools in Enshrouded, the upcoming co-op survival RPG developer Keen Games describes as Valheim meets Zelda, I have to admit… yes, I kind of do want to live in a house built on a boulder sculpted to look like a giant's skull. And I apologize for criticizing your question so harshly. That wasn't cool of me.

In Enshrouded, which will enter early access on Steam later this year, you explore a dangerous realm where a deadly fog has crept in to cover almost everything, mutating creatures caught within it and giving rise to hideous monsters. The only safe zones are on the mountaintops that rise above the fog, and that's where you'll build your home base, a place to relax when you're not out battling the evil beings hiding in the shroud.

I'm definitely down with killing monsters, exploring the world, and using grappling hooks and wingsuits to get around. But the base-building system has me the most interested. Building can be done in complete freeform, letting you shape and mold every last inch of your base, or you can use pre-made templates to build floors, walls, and other structures. The voxel system lets you smoosh walls, pillars, and floors together and it all winds up looking nice and seamless, and once you've built something you can alter it just about any way you want. 

That's where the system looks really flexible, and we can see windows being added to walls by simply subtracting small blocks from the surface. What's especially nice is that it looks like the building tools can tell whether you're making something like an arrow slit, or a window, or a doorway, by the way it quickly styles the opening you've just made. Windows look like windows, doorways look like doorways. It's impressive and gives me hope that my base might wind up looking nice even though I'm not much of a builder. Check out Enshrouded's building and terraforming gameplay video below to see what I'm talking about:

It's not just buildings that are made of voxels, it's everything. Want to create a tunnel through a mountainside? Grab a pickaxe and start swinging it. Want to add a basement under your castle? Carve out all that rock and dirt and start building walls, then decorate it how you like. Already I'm itching to make myself a cool castle with a dungeon beneath it, and the game isn't even out yet.

(Image credit: Keen Games)

Your base isn't just for you and your friends but also NPCs. While you're out adventuring you'll come across characters like hunters, blacksmiths, and alchemists. Once you've rescued them from the shroud you can build them rooms in your base, place items like workbenches for them, and summon them with a magic staff. They'll then live there with you, help you with crafting, and give you quests to complete.

It's all looking pretty darn good to me. If you loved building a cozy base in Valheim or Minecraft, Enshrouded is one to definitely keep an eye on. There's no specific release date yet, but here's the official site to learn more

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Read more
Two airships fire broadsides into each other's hull in Echoes of Elysium.
In this airship-building survival game, I faced an enemy worth punching trees over: 'The hubris of man'
A fantasy character aiming a bow while a wizard readies a staff to fight monsters
Enshrouded 1.0 target date and 2025 roadmap revealed, new update arriving today, and dynamic water on the way
All Will Fall - A concrete and wood ramshackle city in the middle of an endless ocean
This 'physics-based survival city builder' stuffed all my favorite words into its title so I'm automatically psyched
doctors treat plague-stricken peasants in the medieval-ish city-builder Nested Lands
Nested Lands is a 'brutal' survival city-builder about guiding villagers through a plague-infested world, and you can play its open alpha right now
Adventurers exploring a fantasy world
I missed this co-op open world base-builder when it first came out, but it's got over 10,000 positive Steam reviews and it's free to play all weekend
Obenseuer
This brutalist life sim gave me a free tenement block to renovate, but my mushroom addiction kept getting in the way
Latest in Adventure
Image of illuminated manuscript-style drawings from the game Pentiment.
Random characters kept swearing in Obsidian's font-obsessed murder-mystery when its procedural error system ran amok: 'Naughtiness abounded'
An image of a corpse with the text "You've been re-educated."
I played the lost videogame sequel to 1984, and came away more nostalgic than ever for gaming's awkward adolescence in 1999
Rosella encounters a satyr in a forest in King's Quest 4
Eagle-eyed streamer spots that Roberta Williams' portrait in King's Quest 4 is based on her author photo on the back of the game box: 'I never noticed it before.'
Myst puzzle game
'You’ve been asking, and we’ve been listening': Myst remake adds a whole new world to the classic adventure, one originally introduced in another overhaul from 25 years ago
The character takes a test in a school room.
Expelled! review
Max, protagonist of Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Double Exposure, stares with trepidation at something off-screen with her friend.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure reportedly a 'large loss' for Square Enix, says analyst, who adds: 'The company's IP fundamentally varies too much between good and bad'
Latest in News
A female Zoi making two hearts with her fingers.
Following 24 hours of Denuvo-based backlash, Inzoi is taking a surprising step and removing it entirely: 'We want to sincerely apologise for not aligning more closely with player expectations'
An image of a Helldiver from Helldivers 2 shooting at a red dragon from Dungeons & Dragons.
'Ok, so dragon builds are a thing now': galaxy-brained Helldivers 2 player incinerates a bile titan with a hover pack and a flamethrower
An ancient, angry stone mech from No Man's Sky's new Relics update
No Man’s Sky lets you unearth ancient, angry mechs in the astro-archaeology filled Relics update
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April