Don't Wait for Black Flag Resynced, Play Windrose Today
Windrose, a new pirate survival-adventure game from indie studio Kraken Express, has sold over a million copies in six days and could be a serious contender for surprise of the year.
This could be a worthy contender for surprise of the year
Like many others, I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of Black Flag Resynced this coming summer. Even today, I still think the original Black Flag is one of the best pirate games we've ever gotten, but to my complete surprise, I've discovered another game that seriously challenges it and easily slots itself at the top of the list—and that's Windrose. The game is so good that, at least for now, it's shaping up to be my surprise of the year.
Every few months, a "miracle" happens where an unknown game that comes out of nowhere instantly conquers the top of Steam's sales chart and builds a massive player community. We've seen this with games like Valheim, Fall Guys, and now with Windrose, which is the first game from studio Kraken Express. The game launched two weeks ago in early access and within six days had already crossed the one million copies sold mark. Windrose is a PvE survival-adventure game set in an open world where we embark on a pirate adventure (solo or with friends) in which we'll need to travel between different islands to gather more resources, go on treasure hunts following treasure maps searching for loot buried in the sand, and discover the secrets of the world. To travel between islands, we'll start with a small boat, but later we'll be able to recruit a crew and command a large, impressive pirate ship that also gives the game much greater depth with the ability to manage the ship, install cannons on it, and then set out for naval battles against other pirates.
Personally, I started playing Windrose a few days ago together with my partner, and we're simply hooked on it from the very first moment. The combination of pirate gameplay together with survival and base-building is done brilliantly, with the player having almost complete freedom to do what they want. Despite being in early access, Windrose is at a pretty decent level of polish with relatively plenty of content and quests that make us want to keep coming back to it. That said, it's definitely not bug-free, and the fact that it's early in its development is very noticeable with relatively frequent bugs (though not critical ones). But despite that, I can't help but recommend Windrose, and if you're excited about Black Flag Resynced because you're looking for an excellent pirate game, there's probably already one available and that's Windrose.