Windrose proves that survival games don't have to be difficult to be popular

Rust. Subnautica. Project Zomboid. For years, the best survival games have been defined by their difficulty. Scarce materials, unforgiving combat, and a commitment to realism have drawn players to these immersive experiences, intent on testing their skills in the most challenging environments.

Windrose, however, eschews this trend. It offers numerous shortcuts to players who don't want to spend hours mining ore and chopping wood. It removes staple survival mechanics to create a more relaxed gameplay loop. Even the PvE combat against Blackbeard's AI-controlled frigates is simplistic compared to most pirate games, let alone Windrose's survival contemporaries. But players have flocked to the game, proving that smooth sailing is an enticing way into the survival genre for players too intimidated to try more hardcore offerings, or too burned out from unforgiving PvP servers elsewhere.

A pirate's life

You can see Windrose's forgiving mechanics from the moment you wash up on a desert island. You craft your first tools and notice that they don't degrade with use. Your inventory isn't limited by weight. When you come to build your first shelter, you can select a pre-fabricated building instead of architecting your own. You quickly realize that this survival romp is more Jack Sparrow than Edward Low.

Instead of complaining that the survival features are half-baked, however, fans are revelling in the relaxed pace. Weapon degradation in survival games has always been as divisive as it is immersive, but the other quality-of-life upgrades are not so universally derided. Windrose makes immersion walk the plank for the sake of comfort, and players are happily taking the plunge.

This comfort is baked into Windrose, and a lot of it is defined by its approach to combat. You're not hoarding resources and building a great battleship to take on other players, your only foe is Blackbeard and his AI fleet. If there was any sense of competition between players, they would attempt to min-max, they would optimise every item and mechanic to the nth degree. In this situation, shortcuts and time-savers would feel out of place, cheating almost.

But when you're priming yourself to face an NPC boss with your friends, you think about this differently. There's less tension in each combat encounter as the stakes are far lower, so you don't mind skipping the hard grind to reach your full piratical potential as quickly as possible.

Captain Hook(ed)

Speaking of combat, this is an area that's far cozier than I expected. You can control every element of your ship from the comfort of the steering wheel. There’s no raising of sails or bailing out water. Fire the cannons? Just tap your triggers or mouse buttons. It’s arcade-style naval combat without the exhilarating chaos of Sea of Thieves; mechanically simplistic but loads of fun. It surprises me that a survival game doesn’t go all-in on realism, but clearly players are ready for a refreshing bout of brain-off action.

Combat is a little more difficult on dry ground – you don’t have rows of cannons at your disposal to broadside a boar – but there are no consequences to losing. It's practically impossible to lose your loot, as it stays in Dark Souls-style treasure chests where your captain dropped dead under the beak of a particularly vicious dodo. However, in a very un-Dark Souls manner, this never de-spawns. No matter how many times you die, you can go and collect up all your little treasure chests, provided you can escape the victorious enemy that slew you last time around.

Most survival games have an inverse difficulty curve because the endgame involves player-on-player warfare. It’s really difficult to scavenge for resources at the beginning, but by the time you’re assaulting enemy bases, you’ve got enough water to fill a swimming pool and more ammo stockpiled than most armed forces. Windrose has a different endgame in mind, one that will remain shrouded in secrecy throughout early access, but I'm already loving the direction it's headed.

Making a good pirate game should be as easy as plundering a mile-wide chest with ‘free loot’ written on it; pirates are cool and, on the whole, underserved by the medium. Windrose succeeds in creating the fun, and the survival-lite experience suggests that the difficulty will kick in farther down the line – I suspect that Blackbeard will be the least of our worries by the endgame. From krakens to island-sized undead crabs, I dread to think what this game has in store. Whatever monstrosity it might be, I’m ready to raise the skull and crossbones and make it walk the plank.

Is it a pirate's life for you? Check out everything you need to know about Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.