Refusing to be buried by Palworld, survival RPG Enshrouded hits 1 million players in 4 days

Enshrouded list art
(Image credit: Keen Games)

Enshrouded is an RPG-infused survival game that had the misfortune of launching in the shadow of Palworld, another open-world survival game that found the kind of virality even AAA studios would kill for. That hasn't stopped it from finding success in its own right, however. Developer Keen Games says Enshrouded hit 1 million players just 4 days after its Early Access launch, making it a hugely popular survival game in its own right.

"We are completely blown away by its success and the overwhelmingly positive reception," the Keen team writes in a Steam post. "From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank all our players. We're excited to let you know that this is just the beginning for Enshrouded." Seeing as how Enshrouded just started an Early Access journey that's currently scheduled to end "within a year," I suppose it would have to be "the beginning," wouldn't it? 

"We are back to work this week and working tirelessly on the next update," Keen adds. "We would like to thank those of you who have sent suggestions and feedback, as well as those who have reached out to share issues they've encountered. There [are] a lot of you but this is the start of something we want to make truly special, and thanks to your support, we're well on our way to make it happen with Enshrouded."

I can tell you what's sitting at the top of the list of community-requested updates: a change to the way that one person on a 16-player server can progress quests for everyone at once, even folks who aren't online. Enshrouded players have also asked for the game to amp up the challenge, with some parts of the world offering very little in the way of actual threats that you need to, you know, survive. 

Enshrouded is now sitting pretty at 13,598 user reviews on Steam with a "very positive" 84% rating. That said, the most impressive detail in all this may be the fact that it's Keen's second game like this. Its only other similar release was Portal Knights, a much cuter sandbox action RPG released in 2017. In four days, Enshrouded has racked up nearly as many Steam reviews as Portal Knights, and with a slightly higher overall score. 

3 hours into manually mining out their basement, Enshrouded player learns the survival RPG has a tool that would have done it in an instant.

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Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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