2024 is starting strong with survival games. On January 19 Palworld saw its release and quickly took Steam and Xbox by storm, selling over 1 million copies in 8 hours of launch on Steam, and becoming the biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass launch of all time. At last count, it had sold 12 million copies on Steam.
Sporting cartoonish graphics and creatures closely resembling Pokémon, it's no secret that the game is trying to tap into that niche Nintendo has held for so long. Finally, a studio has broken the mold and is reaping the rewards. Yet, that's only half of the story.
As of January 24th, another new survival game launched, which I believe should be on everyone’s radar for a whole bunch of reasons. The game I’m referring to is Enshrouded, an open-world survival game. However, just labeling it as such does it a disservice considering the vast amount of content it offers in its Early Access release on Steam.
Enshrouded is developed by Keen Games. Some of you might be familiar with their other open-world survival game, Portal Knights, which, according to Steam's charts, boasts Very Positive reviews. However, these games differ significantly, not only in their art direction but also in ambition. From the few features it showcases, like the map, skill tree, and base building, it's evident that Enshrouded is packed to the brim with content. With features like these, it's poised to offer great replayability and cement itself as a standout title in the survival genre.
