If you’ve spent a handful of hours grinding through Enshrouded’s early game, you’ve probably hit that frustrating wall where your iron tools break after three hits on a high-tier node, your iron armor barely protects you from mid-level Shroud wolves, and you can’t upgrade your base’s defenses enough to fend off raid attacks. That’s the exact point you need to learn how to make steel in Enshrouded, the versatile mid-game material that unlocks almost every meaningful upgrade for your playthrough, from endgame weapons to corruption-proof base builds. I’ve put over 45 hours into Enshrouded across two separate playthroughs, and I’ve tested every possible route to craft steel, from ultra-fast speedrun methods to resource-heavy bulk crafting. This guide breaks down the easiest, most efficient way to get your first stack of steel bars without wasting hours farming unnecessary materials or fighting enemies you’re not ready for.
What You Need Before You Can Make Steel in Enshrouded
A lot of new players assume they can craft steel as soon as they unlock the smelter, but that’s not the case. You have to hit a few specific milestones first, and skipping any of them will leave you stuck staring at a locked crafting recipe. I made this mistake my first playthrough: I farmed 100 iron ore and 50 charcoal before I realized I hadn’t rescued the Blacksmith, so I couldn’t even access the steel recipe. Save yourself the frustration and make sure you have all of these prerequisites checked off before you start gathering materials:
- Rescued Blacksmith NPC (found in the Forgotten Quarry Shroud zone, accessible once you hit level 10 and pick up the related quest from the Hunter NPC)
- Level 2 Smelter upgraded via the Blacksmith’s first side quest, which only requires 15 iron bars and 20 stone to complete
- 20 Iron Ore per batch of 5 steel bars, mined from iron nodes found in hills across the starting map area
- 10 Charcoal per batch of 5 steel bars, crafted from regular wood in a standard Kiln
- 2 Flux per batch of 5 steel bars, looted from Shroud chests or mined from bright blue flux veins in mid-tier Shroud areas
You don’t need any rare quest items or endgame unlocks to get started with steel crafting. The only slightly tricky material to find is flux, but we’ll cover the best farming spot for that later in the guide. You also don’t need a high-level character to pull this off; I’ve unlocked steel crafting as early as level 11 on my speedrun playthrough, which is far earlier than most players manage to get it.
Step-by-Step Process to Craft Steel Bars
Once you have all your prerequisites sorted, the actual crafting process is straightforward, but there are small optimizations you can make to cut your total time in half. I usually knock out a full stack of 50 steel bars in about 45 minutes of total playtime, including travel and farming, when I follow this exact order.
First, farm your iron ore. The best spot for early-game iron farming is the set of rolling hills directly west of the starting Cinderville base. There are 22 iron nodes scattered across this area, almost no hostile spawns, and zero Shroud coverage, so you don’t have to worry about your corrosion meter ticking up while you mine. Don’t waste your time farming iron in Shroud zones unless you’re already there gathering flux, because the extra enemy spawns and constant corrosion checks slow you down way too much. With an iron pickaxe, you can get 200 iron ore in about 15 minutes from this spot, enough for 50 steel bars.
Next, make your charcoal. You can craft charcoal from any type of wood in a Kiln, and regular unrefined wood works exactly as well as refined construction wood. Don’t waste your valuable refined wood on charcoal; just chop down regular trees around your base. 10 pieces of wood make 1 piece of charcoal, so for 50 steel bars you’ll need 100 charcoal, which only takes 1000 wood to make. That’s about 10 minutes of chopping with a stone axe, or 5 minutes if you have an iron axe.
Third, gather your flux. The most reliable flux farming spot is the northern edge of the first accessible Shroud zone, just south of the Forgotten Quarry. There are 7 flux veins in this small area, guarded only by three level 15 Shroud wolves that you can take out easily with an iron sword. Flux doesn’t respawn if you stay in the area, so farm all 7 veins, fast travel back to your base to drop off the flux, then wait 10 minutes before you head back if you need more. A single run will get you 14 to 21 flux, enough for 35 to 50 steel bars.
Last, smelt your steel. Load all your iron ore, charcoal, and flux into your level 2 smelter, and start the crafting process. Each batch of 5 steel bars takes 90 seconds to cook, so a full 50 bar stack takes 15 minutes total. You don’t have to stand around waiting for it to finish; you can work on base upgrades, cook food, or sort your inventory while the smelter runs. If you’ve completed the Blacksmith’s second side quest, you’ll get a 30% crafting speed bonus for all smelter items, which cuts that 15 minute wait down to just over 10 minutes.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Making Steel
I’ve made almost every possible mistake when crafting steel in my playthroughs, so I can tell you exactly what to avoid to save yourself hours of wasted time and resources. These are the most common errors new players make when they first start working with steel.
The first mistake is trying to unlock steel crafting before rescuing the Blacksmith. A lot of new players spend hours searching for hidden recipe scrolls or trying to upgrade their smelter multiple times, thinking that’s how you unlock steel. But the steel recipe is only given to you automatically once you bring the Blacksmith back to your base and complete his first side quest. You don’t have to buy it or find it in a chest anywhere, so prioritize that quest as soon as you hit level 10.
The second mistake is wasting flux on low-value items. Flux is the only rare material used in steel crafting, and it takes far longer to farm than iron or wood. Steel is only worth using for items you plan to keep for 10+ hours of playtime, like your main weapon, your primary armor set, or permanent base structural upgrades. Don’t waste 10 steel on a random storage chest you’re going to replace next week, or a throwaway weapon for a single boss fight, that’s just throwing valuable flux away.
The third mistake is not storing your steel properly. If your base is built near a Shroud zone, steel bars will decay over time if left out in the open or stored in a regular wooden chest. Keep all your steel in a metal chest in a sealed, non-corrupted part of your base, and you won’t lose any to decay. I lost 20 steel bars my first playthrough because I left them in a wooden chest on my base’s outer deck, which got hit by low-level Shroud corruption overnight.
The fourth mistake is crafting steel in tiny batches. It’s way more time efficient to farm all the materials you need for 40 or 50 steel bars in one go, instead of making 5 bars every time you need a new item. You’ll cut down on travel time between your base and farming spots by 70% if you do one big farming run instead of 10 small ones, and you won’t have to keep stopping whatever you’re doing to gather more materials every time you want to craft something new.
Best Uses for Steel Once You’ve Crafted It
Once you have your first stack of steel bars, you might be tempted to use it for every possible upgrade right away, but there’s a clear order of priority that will give you the biggest benefit first. These are the items you should craft first with your steel.
First, make a steel pickaxe. It mines 3x faster than an iron pickaxe, has 4x more durability, and can mine high-tier materials like obsidian and crystal that you can’t access with iron tools. This one upgrade will cut all your future farming time in half, so it’s always the first thing I make when I unlock steel crafting.
Second, craft a full steel armor set. It gives 40% more physical damage resistance than iron armor, and adds a 25% cold resistance bonus that’s essential for exploring the northern mountain zones, which hold most of Enshrouded’s mid-game content. The steel armor set also doesn’t take durability damage from low-level Shroud corrosion, so you can wear it while farming in Shroud zones without worrying about it breaking halfway through a run.
Third, upgrade your base with steel reinforcements. Steel beams and foundations make your base completely immune to Shroud corruption, so you can build outposts deep inside Shroud zones if you want to farm rare materials without fast traveling back and forth constantly. Steel reinforcements also let you build 5 stories higher than iron or wood foundations, so you can make much larger, more elaborate base builds if that’s what you enjoy.
Fourth, craft a steel crossbow or bow. Steel ranged weapons do 2x more damage than iron versions, and can take down level 20 Shroud bosses in 4 to 5 hits if you pair them with fire arrows. If you’re playing co-op, split your first 50 steel between your team members so everyone gets a steel pickaxe first, that makes group farming way faster for all of you, and you’ll be able to gather materials for more steel in no time.
Once you get the hang of how to make steel in Enshrouded, you’ll wonder how you ever played the game without it. It’s the gateway to all the best content in the game, from high-level boss fights to massive base builds, and it doesn’t take nearly as long to farm as most new players think. The biggest tip I can leave you with is to prioritize rescuing the Blacksmith as soon as you hit level 10, that way you can unlock steel crafting far earlier than most players and skip the frustrating grind of using iron tools against enemies that are too strong for them. If you follow the steps we laid out, you’ll have your first stack of steel bars in less than an hour of playtime.