15 Enshrouded tips to get you started

What are the best tips and tricks for players new to Enshrouded? Keen Games' new open-world survival crafting RPG is a very impressive creation, with a massive and intricate map, great combat and exploration, phenomenal building, and much more to enjoy. But as with most large-scale survival crafting games, Enshrouded can get a little bit overwhelming for new players.

In this beginner's guide, I've put together the ultimate list of useful Enshrouded tips and tricks that I wish I knew when I first began playing the game. Covering everything from magical combat to exploring ruins for secret passages, these tips will catapult your progression through the first few hours of Enshrouded, and far beyond.

1. Get the Glider and Grappling Hook ASAP

There's a huge amount to explore in Enshrouded, and your journeys into the unknown will go a lot more smoothly with the right traversal equipment. Two items in particular are essential for any new player to craft as soon as possible: the Grappling Hook, and the Glider.

With these items in hand, you can launch yourself up to previously out of reach locations, and soar across the landscape from great heights, covering large distances in seconds. There are no mounts or vehicles in Enshrouded, so these tools are your best bet for quickly moving about the map.

And best of all - neither of them take up space in your inventory! They equip straight to your character in the Character screen, just like Shields, so you don't need to worry about them clogging up space in your Backpack.

As an aside - you can even craft your own grapple points for use in your base! Much better than ladders!

2. Prioritise the early quests

Enshrouded may be an open-world survival crafting game at heart, but it also leans heavily into the RPG genre at times. Structure is offered to those who want it in the form of various types of quests offered by the different characters such as the Farmer or Carpenter (or the mystical Flame itself).

And while you can happily ignore them and go off on your own adventures, I'd strongly recommend you prioritise the early quests. These quests will ensure you unlock the five major NPCs early on, as well as giving you access to a plethora of important items, weapons, and equipment (including the Glider and Grappling Hook mentioned above!). So if you're new to the game, please let the quests guide you for the first few hours. You'll thank me later.

3. Rest and eat lots

If you've played Valheim, you'll be right at home with Enshrouded's food and rest mechanics. For everyone else: please rest and eat plenty! It's not just good advice for real life.

In Enshrouded, you can have up to three (later four) food status effects active at once, and many of them are very powerful. My go-to combination in the early game is to eat a Grilled Lean Steak for increased Health, drink some Water for increased Stamina, and keep a few berries on me in case I need to regenerate health over time and don't want to waste a Bandage or Health Potion.

As for resting, that's possibly even more important. You can rest next to your Flame Altar, or any area which fulfils the criteria of warmth and comfort listed in the top-left of your screen. Spend a short time there and you'll fill up your "Well Rested" timer, which dramatically improves your maximum Stamina for the duration it is active. This is fantastic in every aspect of Enshrouded: exploring, gliding, fighting, building... You name it. So remember to rest and eat well.

4. Unlock these three skills first

Enshrouded gives you access to progression via a skill tree (well, really a skill web), and anytime you level up or otherwise get a skill point, you can spend it to unlock new abilities and stat upgrades. But there are three skills that every player should prioritise unlocking first:

These key skills transform your character's basic capabilities both in and out of combat. Merciless and Sneak Attacks both deal massive damage and are pretty much essential for taking down the more challenging enemies at every stage of Enshrouded, and the Double Jump is just self-explanatory. Seriously, who here thinks prioritising Double Jump is a bad idea? Yeah, I didn't think so. The amount of extra mobility it gives you (not to mention parkouring up to otherwise inaccessible areas) is insane.

5. Strengthen the Flame

The very first thing the game askes you to construct is a Flame Altar. This central pedestal structure defines the area in which you can build, and acts as the beating heart of your home in Enshrouded. There are two ways you can upgrade the Flame Altar: you can choose the "Upgrade Altar" option, which costs Shroud Cores but expands your building area around the Flame Altar; and you can also choose the "Strengthen The Flame" option, which costs more resources of different kinds, but gives you a wealth of benefits like increased attributes, better protection against the Shroud, and - crucially - the ability to place down more Flame Altars elsewhere in the world.

6. Create lots of Flame Altars

Flame Altars are your respawn and fast travel points in Enshrouded. Whenever you go on a journey far from your home base (and your spawn point), it's a very good idea to bring a prebuilt Flame Altar in your inventory with you, so that you can make a secondary spawn point nearer your destination. This is both so that you can respawn nearby if you happen to die, and so you can fast travel home (to, say, drop off materials), and then immediately fast travel back to your new Flame Altar so you don't have to make the long journey again. If you forget to bring a second Flame Altar, don't worry - it only costs 5 Stone, and there's Stone all over the map, so it won't be hard for you to craft a new Flame Altar whenever you need it.

As you Strengthen the Flame and unlock the ability to have more Flame Altars in existence at once, it's a good idea to create various little forward bases which allow you to quickly fast travel between different areas of the map. It's a massive help to any player, and will allow you to progress through the game much faster.

7. Make use of BOTH hotbars

One of the nicest quality of life features in Enshrouded is that the player has access to two hotbars. You can switch between these hotbars at any time by hitting ALT or RB + RIGHT THUMBSTICK CLICK. This is fantastic for two reasons. The first is that it expands your backpack size, allowing you to carry more items with you. And second, it allows you to organise your equipment and items more effectively so you can reach twice as many tools without going into your inventory.

I recommend setting up one hotbar for combat and healing, and the other hotbar for building and resource-gathering. So on my first hotbar I have my Sword, Wand, Staff, Bandages, and Healing Potions; and on the other I have my Construction Hammer, Felling Axe, Pickaxe, Rake, Torch... Anything I want quick access to outside of combat. It's a useful system, it's easy to learn, and it's helped me out a lot.

8. Don't neglect Magic!

If my earlier mention of Wands and Staves pricked up your ears, then you're a sorcerer at heart, and you'll get on well with Enshrouded's magical attacks. There are two types of magical weapons in the game: Wands are less powerful and versatile, but they don't require any ammunition to use, which makes them more reliable. Staves, meanwhile, give you access to a wider variety of more powerful spells like Fireballs and Healing Auras, but each spell is a finite resource that you keep in your inventory like ammo.

I strongly encourage you to play around with both weapon types, even if you're traditionally not the sort to utilise magic in these games. The Staff in particular is an exceptionally powerful tool at your disposal, and once you unlock the Alchemist you'll be able to craft more spells to use as ammo without any trouble.

9. Don't dodge, block!

Okay, dodging is important too, I'll admit. But if you're having trouble with Enshrouded's enemies, I'd highly recommend you slow down a little bit, and practice guarding with your weapon (or better yet, a sturdy shield). You'll learn a lot about the enemy's attack patterns, which will allow you to time your blocks just before each attack for a parry.

Parries will deal a tonne of stun damage to the enemy, and if their stun bar fills up, they'll - you guessed it - be stunned, allowing you to perform a devastating Merciless Attack.

10. Shoot barrels for easy victories

Keen Games are quite proud of their terraformable voxel-based terrain, clearly. That's why they've littered explosive barrels around the map, particularly in areas filled with enemies. Shoot one of these barrels, and it will explode, dealing massive damage to anything caught in the blast. Many enemies can be killed in a single blast with this method, but watch out - I've been one-shot by a barrel before, so don't get too close.

11. Build multiples of each Workshop

There are lots of different types of Workshop in Enshrouded. Some of them, like the Workbench, are the more traditional crafting stations we've come to expect from the genre, useful for constructing and repairing basic items. But many others are more like miniature factories: you set a single recipe going, fill the Workshop with resources, leave it a while to slowly refine those resources into something new, and then come and collect the finished product later.

That's why it's a very good idea to build more than one of each type of these Workshops. My blacksmith shop at home, for example, contains 6 Charcoal Kilns and 3 Forges. That way, I can create refined materials like Metal Sheets and Tar at many times the rate that would be possible with just one of each Workshop.

12. You can't have too many building blocks

When you start building your first home in Enshrouded, it's very easy to drastically underestimate how many building blocks you'll need. If you only have 100 or so blocks, then think again. You'll need several thousand at least.

Mercifully, the recipes for basic building blocks like Rough Wood Blocks and Rough Stone Blocks are very cheap, and you can craft them at the Workbench in large quantities without much trouble. But make sure you stock up ahead of a building project, or you'll be forced to interrupt the flow-state of your building in order to fell a forest or too.

And as an aside - definitely learn how to deconstruct properly so as not to waste resources!

13. Explore ruins carefully for secrets

Did you notice the hidden chest in the Longkeep directly north of where you start the game? Well, there are plenty of secret areas like that one hidden in nearly every ruined settlement across the map in Enshrouded, and they usually contain something valuable inside.

Secret areas in ruins are generally hidden by a fake wall with a button extruding from it. Interact with the button to open the wall. Keep your eyes peeled, because sometimes they're hidden quite well, surrounded by pots and plants and various other doodads. And there's also the fake floor variant, which when activated reveals a hidden staircase in the floor.

Even without these secret areas, it's worth taking your time while exploring points of interest in Enshrouded, so you can walk away with the maximum number of resources like Metal Scrap, Shroud Wood, and so on.

14. Mark key mining spots on your map

Mining is another important part of progression in Enshrouded. Not only does it net you a lot of easy XP, but it gives you access to key resources like Salt and Copper in huge quantities.

Some mines are automatically marked as points of interest in the map, but there are plenty of other areas (some, perhaps, in more practical and useful locations) which are not marked. If you come across a good mining spot for a certain resource, open up your map and put down a marker so you can remember where it is for later!

15. Pace yourself, it's a large map!

Enshrouded is a big game. Bigger than you think. It took me about 20 hours of playtime to explore around 5% of the map. Yes, of course there are ways for players to blast their way through the game's challenges in as short a time as possible, but I wouldn't say that's particularly in the spirit of the game.

Enshrouded is all about planning, patience, and exploration. It's a good idea to use quests early on to give you some structure and unlock the key items early on, but after a certain point, I'd recommend you slow down a bit. Have a look around for what interests you, regardless of the quests in your journal. And don't expect to plough through the entire game in a handful of sittings. Enshrouded is a great game, so pace yourself and enjoy the journey.