If you’ve spent hours trekking across Enshrouded’s rolling hills and dangerous Shrouded zones alone, you’ve definitely wondered can you have pets in Enshrouded to join your adventures. Having a little sidekick to help fight enemies, carry extra loot, or just hang out at your base makes survival games feel far more immersive, and this question is one of the most common I see in community forums for the game. This guide breaks down exactly what companion options are available right now, how to unlock them, and what we know about future pet features coming to the game.
Can You Have Pets in Enshrouded Right Now?
As of the latest game updates, there are no permanent, fully customizable pets that follow you everywhere you go in Enshrouded, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get companion-like benefits from friendly creatures and NPCs. The development team has teased full pet systems in public roadmaps, including options to tame and raise fantasy creatures like small dragons and forest foxes that will join you on all your runs, but those features are still in development. For now, there are multiple workarounds that feel almost exactly like having a pet, even if they don’t check every box on the permanent companion wishlist. I tested most of these options during a 12-hour play session last week, and they made my grind for new iron armor way less lonely than usual.
Functional Companion Options That Act Like Pets
The current set of companion options in Enshrouded cover almost every benefit you’d want from a pet, from combat help to quality of life buffs. You can choose from three main types depending on what you’re looking for: NPC followers you can recruit for short quest runs, summonable combat companions, and base pets that stay at your homestead when you’re out exploring. Each type has its own unique perks, and many players mix and match them to get the most out of their playthrough. The biggest benefits of using these companion options include:
Even if these aren’t the permanent roaming pets many players are asking for, they fill the same role for most casual and even hardcore players. I’ve started bringing a summoned wolf with me on every Shroud run, and it’s cut my death count by almost 30% just by taking aggro off me when I’m surrounded by enemies.
How to Unlock Temporary and Base Companion Options
Unlocking all the companion options in Enshrouded doesn’t take very long, even for new players. For summonable combat companions, you first need to unlock the Summoning skill line in your skill tree, which becomes available once you reach level 10. You’ll then need to craft summon totems or staves using Shroud essence, animal hide, and ancient magic fragments, which you can find in ancient ruins scattered across the map. Higher tier totems summon stronger companions that last up to 15 minutes per use, and you can summon up to two at once once you unlock the Master Summoner skill at level 20.
For base pets that stay at your homestead, you’ll first need to build a small animal pen using wood, fiber, and stone. Once the pen is built, you can craft taming treats from berries and plant fiber, which you can use to calm wild animals like sheep, cows, and foxes you find in non-Shrouded forest areas. Lead the tamed animal back to your pen, and it will stay there permanently, producing resources like wool, milk, or even rare foraging items every few in-game days. I tamed a white fox last week, and it now waits by my base entrance every time I come back from a long Shroud run, which is a small but really charming touch.
Important Rules to Follow When Using Enshrouded Companion Options
There are a few easy-to-miss rules you need to follow to make sure you don’t waste your companion summons or lose your base pets. First, Summoned companions can’t follow you into deep Shroud areas – the high corruption levels in those zones will make them disappear immediately, so don’t waste your high tier totems before heading into the most dangerous parts of the map. Second, your base pets can be attacked by enemy raiders if you don’t have proper defense structures around your homestead, so make sure you build high walls and place defensive turrets near your animal pens to keep them safe.
You also shouldn’t leave summoned companions alone near friendly NPC villagers, as some of the villagers will panic if they see a wild wolf or golem nearby and attack it by mistake, wasting your summon. If you’re playing multiplayer, you can share your summons with your team, so it’s worth having one player spec into the summoning skill line to give everyone extra combat help. The dev team has confirmed that permanent pet options with custom names and unique skills are in active development, so we’ll likely see those added to the game in the next two major content updates.
So while the answer to can you have pets in Enshrouded right now isn’t a full yes for permanent roaming companions, the current available options give you almost all the same benefits, and far more features are on the way. If you’re tired of exploring alone, try summoning a wolf for your next boss fight or taming a small animal to keep at your base – it adds a lot of extra charm to the game and makes tough runs feel far less stressful. Keep an eye on official patch notes to be the first to know when full pet systems drop, but for now, these workarounds are more than enough to make your survival journey feel a little less lonely.