Windrose balances brutal survival with cheat-style forgiveness in a way that keeps bringing me back

Over 1.5 million players have set sail in open-world pirate survival game Windrose since its early access launch in mid-April, myself included. I'd like to count myself among the many living out their pirate dreams in the Caribbean, except I'm not sure I am living the pirate dream.

I'm a big fan of open-world and survival-crafting fusions, but that doesn't mean I don't sometimes struggle within them. Windrose has proven itself to be quite challenging for me – which is extremely embarrassing to admit, since it appears I'm in the minority. While it seems many players have been enjoying their time commandeering pirate ships since launch, it took me over six hours of playing to finally obtain a full-fledged pirate ship.

Is this a fault of the game, or myself? Evidence points to the latter. Windrose is one of the most forgiving survival-craft games I've ever played, which is why I keep going back to it. I die and quit the game out of frustration, and instead of ditching it for the next year like I've done with Minecraft over the last decade, I return. Sometimes within an hour. This may sound masochistic, but it's actually the most logical course of action. Windrose provides me with everything I need to continue progressing, in the smoothest fashion possible. I just need a breather from the frustration of continuously seeing "YOU DIED" on my screen.

At first, the easy and immediate deaths were a source of entertainment. Within two minutes of playing the demo, I was launched into space by a boar and it was so shocking I could only laugh. Now, when I'm surrounded by a bunch of pirates and their leader while trying to free would-be crewmates to repair a ship, my swift and unceremonious death is far less humorous.

Means to survive

Windrose provides me with everything I need to succeed: a small sailboat after completing a fairly simple tutorial, a camp doctor who gives me a health potion every in-game day, a giant marker on the map to indicate my last place of death to retrieve items lost, and a mechanic that maintains my inventory from prior to my last death.

So instead of waking up at camp, naked and afraid, I'm still kitted out in my gear, with food in my hotbar, a doctor muttering to himself about how the "human body is capable of marvelous things," and a boat waiting for me to try again. It's a far cry from most other survival games I've played; I can't recall a single one that's ever let me keep any of my inventory that wasn't at least equipped. Loss of inventory is one of the biggest challenges I've faced in this genre of gaming, and can be such a hit to morale that it's difficult to move forward.

While Windrose essentially grips the player's hand, pulls them up off the ground, and dusts off their shoulders after each death, it's not without its post-death hurdles.

Despite Windrose's generous helping hand, it still flexes its survival-craft muscles. Mainly in the form of a dingy little sailboat that Doctor Galen rode up in, which can only go 10 knots per hour. How fast is that? Fast isn't even a descriptor that can be applied here.

This boat is your only means to progress for a good while, hence my frequent closing and re-launching of the game: I'm cut down in my prime, each time forced to spend three minutes sailing to a distant island, bobbing on the waves in a manner that in all honestly should capsize this little fella of a boat.

Still, Windrose is kind, and after a stroke of genius involving a fast travel bell and copious amounts of cheese, I found a pirate ship to call my own. Now I'm commandeering my own ship, fighting Blackbeard's gunboats, and cutting through the waves with such speed I don't even know where to go next.

Suddenly, the world is my oyster. With a loyal crew – who can deliver quite the sea shanty performance if I so desire –, and a big boy ship I can improve upon as I please, progression and adventure continues to be accessible thanks to Windrose's forgiving nature in what is usually a cruel and unforgiving genre of gaming. I may have been struggling for a moment, but my pirate adventure was never far out of reach. Now I can explore further islands, loot ruins and follow clues to buried treasure, level-up, and maybe even find Tortuga, the hotbed of this open-world adventure.

Here are the best ships in Windrose to set your sights on