Windrose, developed and published by Kraken Express, is available on Steam now in early access.
Windrose is a pirate, survival, RPG that lets you live out your pirate fantasies in a sprawling open world. Solo or with friends, you’ll build bases of operation, command a ship, wage war against Blackbeard’s recruits and ultimately become the best pirate there is.
Blackbeard has attacked your ship and left you and your crew for dead. Starting with nothing, you have to rebuild from scratch to take the fight to him in a story of revenge. The main quests explain the wheres and whys. In a survival game, I always feel the story takes a back seat within titles like Windrose. It doesn’t mean it’s bad in any sense; it just isn’t the main attraction. The main attraction of this game is in its gameplay and design.
Windrose is a survival game at heart, and I feel it can be compared to games like Valheim and Enshrouded in its foundation. A lot of the mechanics feel familiar here: survival mechanics and movement, combat, etc. The base building in Windrose is extensive; it’s fairly easy to build your starter house using the most basic of materials. As you progress, you’ll learn more recipes for more advanced buildings and let me tell you, some of the creations people have made are incredible. They look as if they were already available in the game as buildings the developers had designed. Valheim and Enshrouded were similar; people took these systems and made the most amazing things, and I feel Windrose earns points for letting players’ creativity flow freely. The survival mechanics here, I feel, are quite relaxed. I prefer that, as in some survival games, temperature is an issue, needing to eat and drink every five minutes and so on. Windrose is generous with its systems and never made it feel too laborious. While most systems are good, I feel that the combat lets it down a bit. I found the combat quite difficult at first, and even after upgrading, it was a little tough; I’d die more than anything, which annoyed me. Whether it’s a skill issue or not, I found the combat to be quite unforgiving. The ship sailing is incredibly well done, as is the ship combat; it feels incredibly punchy and responsive. Being a pirate never felt so good!
Windrose is a beautiful game; the oceans are vast, the forest so utterly dense it’s incredible, but again, I do have one small complaint. While there are places to explore and things to do, I feel that procedural generation sometimes waters down incredible worlds. Windrose seems to use it well; however, I worry that exploration might become a little stale in the end due to coming across repeated POIs. The game, however, is in early access, and I imagine these systems will be expanded on as we go. Pirate shanties are also back. What’s a pirate game without awesome sea shanties, right? You’ll be sailing the seas with your crew happily singing away, waiting to arrive at Tortuga for a nice rum or 7. It’s beautiful to listen to, adding to the already immersive pirate feel. The ocean, jungle, and beaches all sound incredible, which fits perfectly with the theme.
I am having a blast on a truly creative pirate game that lets us live out our pirate fantasy. I enjoyed what Windrose has to offer. It’s in early access, there’s a lot to do, and the general consensus is that this is a pirate game worth playing. There are a few things I’d change, like difficulty and procedural generation. 7 Days To Die offers one handcrafted world, and the option to generate your own, and I think Windrose could benefit from that. I feel that Windrose can become something huge in a space where we need decent pirate games. Let’s hope its early access journey is a successful one because, despite my two negative points, it’s still a great title.
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