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I was already interested in Everwind, an upcoming sandbox RPG heavily styled after Minecraft but with first-person combat that can't help but bring The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim to mind, after seeing its trailer and successful Kickstarter pitch. When the demo started flying up the Steam Next Fest charts, I grew more curious. Everything clicked when I realized that the publisher of this thing is Bohemia Interactive, best known as the maker of DayZ and Arma 3 among other sandbox icons (the much less iconic Ylands is probably the closest parallel here). Thoroughly intrigued, I had a run of the demo, and I'll be damned, I think we've got something here.
Everwind, by developer Enjoy Studio S.A., s a co-op-equipped adventure about gathering resources, crafting gear, and exploring scattered islands across the air and sea using your upgradeable airship base. It is extremely Minecraft-flavored from the get-to. Break and place blocks, craft tools like axes and pickaxes, repair your gear, slap on some armor, and chow down on some mushroom soup. Here's a radical change of pace for survival game openers: punch skeletons, not trees. And by punch, I mean wildly swing a lead pipe in their general direction.
As someone who has historically enjoyed Minecraft but never truly stuck with it, this demo is doing a few things that I really like. I'm a sucker for floating islands thanks to JRPG psyops, and upgrading your airship's size, speed, and maximum altitude gives you a clear goal to pursue that has a measurable impact on the world. Piloting that airship feels good, too; I carefully set my vessel down for a soft seaside landing after spotting a watchtower on an otherwise abandoned island, and hastily constructed a dirt bridge to shore.
I can easily imagine hunting for specific resources to beef up my engine, and inevitably getting sidetracked by dungeons and caves – always my favorite parts of Minecraft – on the way. The opening barrage of items and recipes is a bit much, with the demo tutorial simultaneously feeling too short and overloaded, but most everything felt the way I wanted it to. Opening chests, crafting tools, eating food, chopping wood – I just relied on my Minecraft instincts, and they did not betray me. I did totally lose track of time during my session with Everwind, which is a very good sign.
This is one of those ideas with a sky-high ceiling for potential but also a cavernous floor. But so far, Everwind actually shows a lot of promise. In my mind, I can see it becoming a legitimately good game, which is a start. The demo alone has nearly 1,000 very positive reviews on Steam already, which is a downright great start.
