Windrose Early Access - Is it worth it?

If Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag proved anything, it’s that there’s a burning desire for pirate games. In case you needed more evidence, Windrose, which entered Early Access last week, has already sold over a million copies. This makes it clear how badly this niche needs to be filled and how eager people are for more. The game is set to stay in Early Access for at least another 2.5 years, but considering the scope of it and how almost all games wildly undershoot this target, I won’t be surprised if there’s a delay. However, the game already has dozens of hours of playtime and a big main story to get through, so the question stands: is Windrose worth it in Early Access?

Windrose is billed as a survival crafting game, and the second part is certainly true. You can’t sleep, there are no thirst or hunger bars, and your health doesn’t drop automatically, so I don’t see how it’s a survival game. You can temporarily extend your health bar by a chunk each time you eat a unique food, though, which gives you good cause to eat before heading into battle.

The game’s initial structure is typical of crafting games, though. You need to continually harvest resources to build yourself a base camp and craft new types of items, whether they be tools, gear, or important base fixtures.

It takes a solid four or five hours of this before you get your ship too, so don’t expect to just jump in unabated. While following the early crafting grind, Windrose eventually gives you a small boat (you weirdly don’t have to find it or build it, it just magically shows up) and tasks you with freeing some captured potential crew members, along with scrounging up the resources to fix up a wrecked ship on a nearby island. Then you’ll fit it with cannons and boarding gear and be able to sail out to further areas, as well as attack, board, and sink enemy ships.

The game is fairly polished and looks terrific for an indie game, but the combat does hold it back. Each melee weapon has a single attack string and the ability to block. Attacking and dodging uses up stamina, while blocking uses up the weapon’s block gauge. If it’s fully depleted (for you or a foe), then the character is vulnerable for a while. Depending on the weapon, you can parry enemy strikes as well. Ship combat, on the other hand, is akin to Black Flag. You aim your cannons at the enemy and fire, then you board their ship and have to take out a certain amount to win.

The issue with the above is that the combat in Windrose isn’t great. On foot, it mostly devolves into running away from an enemy until they attack, at which point you can get a swing or two in before you have to move once more. This is especially dull when up against multiple foes at once, which is a common occurrence. At the default setting, most enemies kill you in just a couple of hits if you haven’t buffed your health bar, which I thought was completely unreasonable. Ship combat does feel like Black Flag‘s, but it is much harder to aim and is much more unwieldy. Suffice to say, the game’s combat really needs a lot of work.

There’s a pretty huge amount of hours available here, especially if you play the game with friends. There’s a ton to craft, the building feature is decent, and sailing, while a bit dull, is also nicely calming. I’m curious to see what the devs improve as development proceeds, but regardless of my complaints, people seem to be very into it. As for whether Windrose is worth it, that depends on whether or not you’re willing to deal with the game’s combat, as I think that’s easily the weakest link here.