Enshroudedis an open-world survival crafting game, which is a genre that usually relies on having a procedurally-generated world.
These procedurally-generated worlds usually make the survival experience even harsher, as you never know where to find resources. Guides can’t help you much either, as locations vary for everyone!
In this article, we look into what type of world to expect from Enshrouded and the developers’ reasoning for it.
Is the World Procedurally-Generated?
Breaking from the common tradition of open-world survival crafting games, Enshrouded’s world is not procedurally generated.
This question is answered on the FAQ in the game’s official Discord server. It states that the world of Enshrouded is fully hand-crafted by “free-range game designers.”
When looking further into discussions on this topic on the Discord server, we can see the community manager at Keen Games provides further reasoning for this decision.
He states that a hand-crafted world allows for a more cohesive and unique world. This avoids the common pitfalls of procedurally-generated worlds, such as repetitive areas and a lack of cohesion.
Procedurally-generating the world can provide nearly infinite content, sure. But it can feel extremely empty and lack the creativity seen in hand-crafted levels and worlds.
Another positive for Enshrouded’s hand-crafted world is that it allows the developers to better handle lore, story, and easter eggs.
Having a carefully designed world makes it easier to guide players to unique key locations, as well as hidden secrets and easter eggs to reward the more observant players.
The downside to this is, of course, replayability. If you learn the game’s world like the back of your hand, you won’t have any real reason to explore it any further!
All in all, both types of games have their pros and cons. It just so happens that Enshrouded’s developers have favored the hand-crafted approach.
So, in short, Enshrouded’s world is uniquely crafted by the game designers with no procedural generation.
It’ll be more similar to survival games like The Forest than something like Valheim, in that sense. If you want a unique world to explore with your friends, you’re in for a treat!
Venezuelan gamer cursed by being interested by most games, resulting in a ridiculous backlog he’ll never be able to conquer. Been gaming for over two decades now! Few things exemplify his wide variety in gaming tastes as the fact that he’s a big fan of both Souls games and the Atelier series at the same time. Also a big fan of Yakuza/Like a Dragon, Deadly Premonition, Zero Escape, and Dead Rising, among others. Considers Lost Judgment and Sekiro to both be masterpieces.