Windrose – Early Access Thoughts

Ah Windrose. The swashbuckling PvE survival game that seemingly took Steam by storm. Is it the best pirate game ever released? No, but it’s still a pretty good time.

I’m a little late to the release party, as my partner and I do not get to play as much as we’d like. We’re about 60 hours into Windrose, so now is as good a time as any for my opinions.

I’ve been following Windrose since its initial trailer debut back in the latter half of 2025. This was when it was originally titled Crosswind. Windrose was due to be a live-service MMO but development transitioned to creating a solo/co-op PvE experience. I’m extremely pleased to say that this was a very good shift, even though a part of me still craves the feeling that Pirates of the Caribbean online used to give me.

Windrose is a survival game at heart but doesn’t follow the usual systems that we have come to expect. There is no forced requirement to eat, drink or sleep. Food is used purely as a buff to increase stats and boost health bars – something that is extremely important to combat the game’s harsh combat. Skill points are earned upon level ups with talent points given every two levels, I believe. These traits are mainly passive introductions and whilst some are unique, the majority are just a % increase in something like damage type, armour, stamina etc. I’d like to see these more fleshed out down the line as currently, a lot of them seem pretty redundant. These should be reworked to allow the ability to create full, unique builds with a multitude of skills that compliment each other.

Combat itself is, fine? It’s not going to be the selling point of the game but at the same time, it’s not the worst. The entire game is more on the difficult side, if you do not change settings. Whilst it’s perfectly managable, it also feels like the game is designed to have combat with only one or two enemies at a time. Issues appear in discoverable areas and there’s been times where we’ve encountered five or six in a tight area. Combine the heavy damage from enemies, unblockable attacks that seemingly magnet onto you sometimes and how easy it is to get stun locked by groups – it produces a system that doesn’t fully work well with large amounts of enemies.

Of course, this varies by enemy type and how over geared you are. For example, multiple pirates are pretty fine to deal with (except Musketeers who don’t always show animation of them preparing a shot) but enemies that have jolty movement, like wolves, are where the blemishes show. Windrose also has an annoying problem with magnetisation, for lack of a better word. Enemies will spin around at unfathomable speeds/angles to attack after you’ve dodged and throwables following unfair trajectories.

With that negativity out of the way, sailing and ship combat is extremely fun and the best part of Windrose. The three different ships currently in the game are the Ketch, Brig and Frigate. Each also have three distinct variants – a middle grounder, one that quicker with bigger cannons but lower health and then a tankier version that’s slower. These three allow players to easily pick the ship that suits their playstyle and finalising the materials to build the next ship for the first time felt really rewarding.

Ship combat itself plays in the same vein as games like Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag and Skull & Bones, where you control all cannons at once on either side of the ship when firing. Other players can jump on your ship and control the cannons, albeit not individually. This leads to some fun teamwork when only a single ship is required for exploration and such. The shanties sound amazing and are instantly turned on every single time I started sailing. I have noticed that ships are drawn to your presence in the distance, long before they’ve even spotted you. This further leads more the “magnetisation” mentioned earlier.

Last and certainly not least, is building. I like it. It’s good, it’s intuitive and it’s flexible. There’s a tonne of parts/blocks that all connect efficiently, giving the ability to create sprawling mini towns or docks. It can seem like a while before the next “upgrade” of building materials, as plans are locked behind faction upgrades. Whilst my creativity normally sucks, all buildings always seem to look pretty great with how everything links and fits together. I find myself enjoying the chill out building sessions more in Windrose than other games.

If you’re looking for something fresh in the Pirate genre, then I absolutely do recommend Windrose. On that note, however, I would also recommend to lower your expectations, especially towards the later part of the game. As Windrose progress, the cracks in its foundation start to show a lot more. Kraken Express are fully working on their next Ashlands major update and it’ll be at least six months away. Whilst I fully appreciate the development time needed for more content, I think Windrose would benefit from some QOL/balance patches and smaller content additions whilst its still in its infancy stage.