If you've spent even a few hours exploring Enshrouded's sprawling, mist-shrouded open world, you've probably stared up at a distant mountain peak or across a gaping canyon wondering how to get there without trekking for 10 minutes through hordes of Shroud creatures. That's where knowing how to glide in Enshrouded changes everything. I've put over 80 hours into the game since launch, and I still use gliding for at least half of my traversal, even after unlocking every fast travel point on the map. It's not just faster — it lets you skip dangerous enemy camps, grab hard-to-reach crafting materials, and even escape tough fights when you're low on health and out of healing potions.
How to Glide in Enshrouded: First Unlock Your Glider
You can't glide the second you wake up in the game's starting cave, but you can unlock the glider within your first two hours of play if you prioritize the right quests. The glider blueprint comes from the Carpenter NPC, who you'll rescue as part of the first main story quest line in the Springlands area. You don't have to beat any tough bosses to get her, just clear a small ruin full of low-level bandits, and she'll move into your base to offer crafting recipes.
Once she's settled in, you can craft the basic glider with common materials you can find all over the starting area. You won't need any rare drops or high-level crafting stations to make it:
- 8x Wood Planks: Craft these by processing raw wood at any sawbench, or find them in abandoned cabins across the Springlands
- 3x Cloth: Loot cloth from human enemy camps, or craft it from plant fiber collected from grass and small bushes near your base
- 2x String: Craft string from plant fiber, or find it in common chests in small ruin sites scattered around the starting forest
- 1x Leather: Drop it from wolf or boar enemies you hunt in the forest areas right outside the starting cave
Once you craft the glider, you need to equip it to your quick slot bar to use it. I recommend putting it on the 3 or 4 slot, since you'll be switching between it, your pickaxe, and your weapon constantly when exploring. You don't need to keep it equipped permanently, but having it one button press away saves you from fumbling through your inventory when you accidentally fall off a cliff.
Basic Gliding Controls and Common Mistakes to Avoid
Once you have the glider equipped, using it is straightforward, but a lot of new players mess it up their first few tries and end up taking unnecessary fall damage. First, you need to be at least 3 blocks off the ground to deploy the glider — if you jump from flat ground or a small 2-block ledge, it won't open, and you'll just land hard like normal. To deploy, hold the jump button right after you step off a high ledge, or mid-jump if you're leaping from a tall platform. On controller, that's holding X (Xbox) or Square (PlayStation) after you leave the ground, and on keyboard it's holding Space.
You can steer left and right with your standard movement keys, and tilt your camera up or down to adjust your glide speed and altitude. Tilt down to go faster, but you'll lose altitude much quicker. Tilt up to slow down and gain a little extra height, but you'll stall if you hold it too long and start falling straight down. I like to alternate between tilting up and down every few seconds to maximize my total distance.
The most common mistake new players make is holding the jump button down before they leave the ground, which doesn't trigger the glider deployment. You have to press and hold it after your feet leave the surface, not before. Never try to deploy your glider when you're already in the Shroud mist below the map's red altitude line — the mist will damage the glider fabric instantly, and you'll fall straight through to your death. I can't tell you how many times I forgot that rule early on and lost a full inventory of rare ore because I tried to glide out of a Shroud ravine.
Advanced Gliding Tricks to Traverse Further and Faster
Once you get the hang of basic gliding, there are a few tricks that will let you travel twice as far as the base glider normally allows, no upgrades needed. First, the double jump boost trick: if you unlock the double jump skill from the first tier of the skill tree, you can use the second jump right before deploying your glider to get an extra 2-3 blocks of height, which adds dozens of meters to your total glide distance. I use this every single time I glide, it's such a small change but it makes a massive difference.
Next, learn to spot and use updrafts. A lot of new players don't notice the faint white columns of air scattered across the map, usually near mountain peaks, large rock formations, and Ancient Spires. Flying through an updraft will push you upward automatically, letting you reset your altitude and glide for minutes at a time without touching the ground. I once glided from the top of the first Ancient Spire all the way to the northern edge of the Kindlewastes using only updrafts, no fast travel needed, and I picked up three rare lore chests along the way that I would have never found if I walked.
Another useful trick is that you can swap to your weapon or tool mid-glide if you need to. If you see a rare ore node on a cliff face as you're gliding past, you can pull out your pickaxe and hit it mid-flight, then pull the glider back out immediately to keep going. Just don't wait too long to redeploy, or you'll fall too far and take damage. You can also use this trick to take out flying Shroud enemies mid-glide if they attack you, instead of having to land to fight them.
Is Upgrading Your Glider Worth It?
As you progress through the game, you'll unlock blueprints for two upgraded gliders: the Advanced Glider and the Master Glider. A lot of players wonder if it's worth spending rare crafting materials on these upgrades, especially when the basic glider works fine for most short trips. Let's break down the pros and cons so you can decide for yourself.
The Advanced Glider unlocks when you reach the mid-game desert area, and it has 30% more durability, plus it lets you glide 25% further on the same starting altitude than the basic model. It costs more rare materials, including Iron Planks and Silk, but if you spend a lot of time exploring off the beaten path, it's absolutely worth crafting as soon as you can. The Master Glider is an end-game unlock, it has 50% more range than the basic model, and it's resistant to light Shroud damage, so you can glide through low-level mist for a few seconds without it breaking.
If you're a completionist who hunts for all the hidden lore chests and secret locations, the Master Glider is one of the best investments you can make in the game. But if you mostly stick to fast travel and only glide for short trips between your base and nearby resource nodes, you can probably get away with just the basic glider for your entire playthrough. All glider upgrades are permanent, and repairing a fully broken glider only costs 1 cloth, so you won't have to spend a lot of resources keeping it in good shape even if you use it constantly.
At the end of the day, taking the time to learn how to glide in Enshrouded is one of the best quality of life upgrades you can get early in your playthrough. It doesn't require a huge time investment to unlock the basic glider, and once you get the hang of the controls, you'll cut down your travel time by more than half, and get access to dozens of secret areas you would never find on foot. Don't get discouraged if you mess up your first few glides and take fall damage — even experienced players still stall and fall sometimes when they're rushing. Try out the updraft trick next time you're near a mountain, and you'll be hooked on gliding before you know it.