Does Enshrouded have a procedurally generated map?

Enshrouded is grabbing plenty of headlines in the gaming community, which is not surprising as the crafting survival and RPG hybrid has plenty of interesting elements. One of the game's highlights is the massive map on which all the action takes place. At first, it might look like the map is entirely procedurally generated and changes according to different saves.

However, developer Keen Games has confirmed that's not the case. While plenty of efforts have gone into developing Enshrouded's map, it's not procedurally generated, and this is unlikely to change in the future. While this could disappoint some players, it allows for more predictable gameplay from a title with plenty of complex elements.

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Why is Enshrouded not procedurally generated?

Keen Games' decision to opt against the procedural generation of the Enshrouded map seems to have something to do with their performance targets. In a Steam Community discussion, the developer explained the rationale behind the move:

“Our game is a highly detailed voxel-based world, and has a strong emphasis on story and exploration."

The game's map has plenty of interesting elements (Image via Keen Games)

Exploration is only one of the several aspects of Enshrouded gameplay. While players discover new areas, crafting different structures and defeating enemies is also key to survival.

In the same discussion, Keen Games said the decision not to use procedural generation has to do with how such maps usually look like.

"Procedural generated worlds inherently come with a pretty strong lack of structure. They will always inherently be less detailed and coherent than a hand built world, which would have made it pretty much impossible to actually achieve a level of story telling and world building that we wanted to do with our game."

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Is Enshrouded's map always the same?

The game's map is hand-crafted, which is evident by the sheer amount of details players will observe in certain areas. Regions covered by the Shroud act very differently from those that don't have any immediate life threat.

As interesting as the map is in general, it's always the same in every save. The map also doesn't change if players play alone or in co-op.

The map has a lot of interesting locations (Image via Keen Games)

There are both merits and demerits to this. The demerits include the reduced variability in different saves. If the map was procedurally generated, as found in games like Valheim, the overall gameplay could have been more dynamic. It will also have offered replayability as no two save files will have been exactly the same.

However, the same map design also allows players to get used to their surroundings. It also makes it easier for them to find different resources, some of which are necessary to upgrade equipment and build housing structures.

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That said, things could change in the future if Keen Games decides to introduce an extra game mode containing procedurally-generated maps. Even though the maps are essentially the same, there are plenty of key areas to explore, rewards to be unlocked, and structures to be built.