The playable demo for PvE survival adventure Windrose has been gaining traction on Steam for the past week, and like any curious gamer, I had to check it out for myself. But having been burned by pirate games before – I remember suffering through three hours of chopping down trees in Skull And Bones – I felt scared despite positive reviews. After two hours with the demo, however, I was totally amazed. This is a polished survival crafting game with pirate ships. I'm in.
Windrose, formerly known as Crosswind, is an open world survival RPG with some light soul-like combat elements. You begin the journey as a humble pirate with a rowboat and only a few rudimentary tools. The formula is familiar: chop down trees, collect rocks, hunt for loot and explore the seven seas. It's a nice looking game to begin with, and while this is still only an early build, it has a lot of nice quality of life features and works very smoothly. That's a big bonus right out of the gate.
Originally, developer Windrose Crew intended Crosswind to be a PvPvE game, but PvP has been removed entirely. This is a complete PvE survival experience, a solid change based on what I've played so far.
The Windrose Adventure
I knew this was going to be a fun time when I died to a dodo within the first five minutes. The combat is designed around a “soulslite” philosophy, so ducking and parrying is important immediately, even when trying to deal with your first aggressive boars to collect their hides and tusks. As I explored, I found underground chambers filled with loot, defeated drowned sailors, and drank a whole lot of rum. I even built a simple shelter out of grass and logs for the whole Robinson Crusoe experience.
There isn't really a tutorial or a bunch of menus to sift through. You are simply thrown into this pirate world and left to fend for yourself. The main quest walks you through some story elements and helps you get to grips with exploring on your own, pointing you in the direction of the next story beat and your level progression. I'd like to see more leveling elements added to the game a la New World (nothing beats the numbers going up), but for now the introductory experience is very smooth. Two hours passed in a blur.
There's also a large skill tree, so you can spec your character however you want.
The building mechanics are also solid. I built my house on the sand, which is a stupid thing to do, but it was extremely easy to build a full-fledged shack on the beach. Usually I find this style of indie survival game to have a very hit and miss build system, so to see one that works this smoothly out of the box is very reassuring for the future.
The seven seas
One of the most important aspects of pirate games is the sea itself. The atmosphere plays just as much a role as the mechanics. Sea of Thieves gets this so right. Sailing with your friends and watching the rolling waves is a top gaming experience, especially once you break out the musical instruments or get ambushed by a ghostly ship that appears from the depths. Windrose nails the atmosphere. I spent quite a bit of time just watching the sunset and admiring the physics of the water from my little rowboat.
Once I got hold of the larger ship, everything started to come together. You steer the ship yourself and have a crew to help you, and while you sail you can trigger squalls. The map is sizable even for a demo and I had to stop getting too carried away and remind myself that this is in fact just a demo at the moment.
Windrose is already in excellent condition and the potential is there. I'm interested to see how the game develops during its early access period, and while we don't have a concrete release date, I can see that the dev team wants to get this out into the world ASAP after its hugely successful Steam Next Fest demo.
Windrose
- Developer
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Windrose Crew
- Publisher
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Windrose Crew
- Multiplayer
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Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
