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When I first learned about Windrose on that fateful day during Steam Next Fest in February, I was a little salty about the fact that progress in the demo doesn't carry over to the full game. However, after playing the opening parts of the game and raving about it to anyone who'll listen, I'm not mad at all. Windrose launched into Steam Early Access today to immediately glowing reviews and incredible peak player counts, and I can't wait to start all over again.
I'm reacting to the news of Windrose's early wins with a sense of delight, but not surprise. The explicitly Assassin's Creed Black Flag-inspired survival romp is beautiful, amazingly well-optimized, and blends together Black Flag-like sailing with Sea of Thieves-style combat and Valheim survival and crafting into a really unique whole that still somehow feels fairly cohesive. In the famous words of one Todd Howard, "all of this just works."
Again, unsurprisingly, this has proven a winning formula with players. Now that the game's out in Steam Early Access, people are flocking to Windrose in droves, with a peak concurrent player count of 69,544 on launch day, according to SteamDB. That's mighty impressive for a debut title from a previously unknown indie developer.
It's true that Palworld publisher Pocketpair picked up publishing rights in Japan in April, but that was a while after Windrose had already established itself with several viral moments, namely thanks to its Steam Next Fest Demo that launched in February. Even more to developer Windrose Crew's credit, the game is reviewing really well right here on day one without any widespread performance complaints. Again, a rare feat these days.
At the time of writing, Windrose has more than 1,400 reviews and 88% of them are categorized as positive. I know as well as anyone that there's been a real drought in the pirate games space for literal years now, and although Sea of Thieves is still a great time and a Black Flag remake now seems likelier than ever, Windrose is a glug of fresh water on the open seas according to reviews. This excerpt from Steam user iThanatos's review echoes my general thoughts pretty well:
"The hook is how smoothly it blends genres: the satisfying 'one more run' progression of Valheim, gorgeous visuals, and naval combat that feels like the pirate game everyone's been waiting for. Honestly, this is what Sk&Bones should’ve been and it scratches that Black Flag itch in the best way."
