Finding a good pirate game that makes you feel like you’re in control of the seas with a threatening personality is hard to come by. Every pirate game offers a unique experience throughout, but the most fun that I had in a pirate game was back in 2013, with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Although it was not a fully pirate game, it still offered a strong plot with immersive naval combat across the Caribbean Sea.
After that, I never really felt indulged in a pirate adventure, until recently, with Windrose. Windrose is an indie title from a small studio, Kraken Express. It captivates players’ love of pirates with its unique high-seas setting and the urge to survive, featuring crafting, building, and land and naval combat. The fact that Windrose is still in Early Access means it has a lot of potential for becoming a solid pirate experience.
Windrose is available for $29.99 on PC [Steam and Epic Games Store].
Story and Setting – Classic Blackbeard Story
You begin as a captain on a voyage in the tutorial. Blackbeard ambushes your ship to steal a mystical artifact and leaves you wounded to die. Fortunately, the relic’s powers save you from dying and wash you up on a deserted island, initiating your survival journey.
You start with nothing but a trustworthy blade and a pistol. Your main motive is to go for revenge against Blackbeard and uncover the relic’s secrets. The fantasy take on piracy is what makes it more interesting, as you would get to learn more about Blackbeard reshaping the seas with dark sorcery.
Jungle Biome
The world’s setting in Windrose is very interesting and captivating. It is an alternate Age of Piracy, where your journey evolves from personal vengeance to uncovering secrets of mystical relics while fighting against pirate factions, empires, and supernatural forces. The cursed seas add a sense of Mystical Piracy tone, allowing you to sail through intense storms and supernatural threats.
Moreover, the world design is like Gritty Realism meets Dark Fantasy. You will get to explore vast jungles, ruins, and open seas, and then at the same time, you will find yourself in cursed ruins and ghostly fleets.
Gameplay – Survival and Piracy
Windrose is a third-person perspective crafting a survival PVE adventure set in an alternate Age of Piracy. The closest game resembling Windrose is Valheim, in various ways. Yes, you would think that Windrose is a pirate game, where you take the role of captain to conquer the High Seas, and you do, but the important thing to keep in mind is that it is a through-and-through survival game first. Your early adventure revolves around gathering wood, plant fiber, stones, minerals, etc., to set up your first base.
Yes there are crawlers
There is an expansive Building Panel consisting of numerous crafting stations and all sorts of decorations for your base. The game is quite generous with tutorials, helping you understand the core mechanics essential to survival.
Not long into your journey, you will meet the ship’s surgeon, Doctor Galen. From here, you will venture onto other islands using a small boat to find a large shipwreck. As you work to fix the ship with the resources and gather recruits around the islands, you will unlock your first ship. This is where the game will let you feel like a pirate, as you start to take control of the sea.
Exploring the sea with your recruits will let you run into random naval encounters. Fire up the canons at the enemies to destroy their ships or bring them to low health to board their ship.
A pirate is nothing without his base
Core Gameplay, Exploration, and Progression
As I mentioned above, Windrose is a survival game first. There are a lot of survival mechanics that you must understand through the tutorial to perform better in a harsh world.
For instance, building a base with a High Comfort Level is crucial for almost everything. While you are at the base, you get the “Rested” buff, replenishing your stamina faster for a certain time. The higher the Comfort Level, the longer the buff. It directly impacts how long you can explore the rest of the island without feeling exhausted, as every action costs Stamina.
Inventory management can be crucial early in the game
Cutting, mining, attacking, dodging, parrying, blocking, sprinting, and so on, everything costs Stamina. If your Stamina takes longer to regenerate, you will not have a pleasant time running into enemies or exploring the island in general.
In terms of exploration, there is so much to explore. The world is filled with handcrafted dungeons and Points of Interest. I highly appreciate how rewarding exploration feels in Windrose. Every “?” (POI) you explore, you find something better, from rare resources to better weapons and gear items. Moreover, you can find various notes at these locations that can lead you to possible treasure chests. Overall, the exploration feels very dynamic and rewarding in Windrose.
The progression in Windrose is highly dependent on the main story questline. Not only does following the main story get you to meet with more characters, but it also opens up new biomes for you to explore. You can reach other biomes before advancing in the story, but the game does not open up new recipes for you, even if you gather new resources. The only way to make progress is to advance in the story.
Combat is where Windrose shines the most, especially in land combat against enemies and bosses. There is a decent variety of enemies you get to encounter in each biome.
Moreover, every biome has a unique boss that is particularly hard and strategic. Defeating the boss is crucial to progress, so it requires you to build your character strategically. You can choose to defeat the enemies up close or make use of the ranged weapons. It all depends on how you have built your character, using the deep Talents system.
Naval Combat is very fun
Moreover, it is appreciative that you can change the builds without cost, as every boss is unique. Most of the time, you use standard combat maneuvers of dodging and blocking, but the most fun is when you can master the parry action. Parrying an attack does not break your guard, but leaves enemies vulnerable, very soulslite.
Moreover, you have to be prepared for combat at any time. You must bring at least two different types of food items to enhance maximum health and buffs. Food is only for buffs in Windrose; staying hungry does not kill you. Before engaging in a fight, it is best to consume food for buffs.
However, the naval encounters might feel a bit less exciting, but they are very decent and fresh. It would be better if the game gave you more insight into how to manage the ship rather than figuring it out on your own.
Once you know how to manage the ship and crew on board, you can enjoy the naval encounters to the full extent. There is precise shooting in naval encounters, requiring you to aim the cannons a bit ahead of the enemy ship, but the environment is not reactive, even in a thunderstorm.
Bosses give you the Soul-like experience
Hub and Factions
Windrose is a big game and offers a lot of content for an Early Access Stage. Despite it being capped on Level 15 for the character, there is so much to do. For instance, you will reach Tortuga as you progress in the main story. This is the main hub area for all the factions (currently four). You can find Provisioners and Bounty Agents for the factions, offering you unique items in exchange for miscellaneous items corresponding to them.
Tortuga island
There are home islands for each faction, which you can unravel by following the side quests or exploration. Complete side quests for these factions and turn in items for them to raise your bond level with them. After every level, the vendors from each faction will offer you unique items, from decorations to armor sets.
Graphics, Sound, and Optimization
Visual presentation of Windrose is semi-realistic, with jungle biomes, handcrafted dungeons, ancient ruins, pirate strongholds, distant waves, and more. The texturing of the biomes, dynamic weather, and combat animations are all great. These surely help raise the immersion during exploration.
Windrose features a deadly swamp biome
The sound design of Windrose is very good. Weapons and combat maneuvers have crispy shield-breaking sounds, which adds a level of immersion to gameplay. The rustling foliage in the jungle and the eerie silence inside caves and ruins are also very noticeable. Overall, the sound design of Windrose feels polished and immersive.
Windrose might not be in the current stage of well-optimization, but it can run up to 60 FPS on mid-range PCs by tweaking the settings. Optimization is crucial for a smoother experience, so I do hope that it is one of the major improvements we get to see as the Devs continue to complete the game.
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- Exploration is core experience
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- Windrose features expansive building
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- Variety of Crafting Recipes
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- Windrose offers variety of ships
Windrose was reviewed on PC (Steam) with a key provided by the Kraken Express.
