Pirate Survival Game Windrose Heads to Steam Early Access Next Week
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
Windrose, the pirate survival game published by Pocketpair and developed by Windrose Crew, hits Steam early access on April 14 following a successful demo and a pivot from a free-to-play MMO model.
The much-anticipated pirate survival adventure Windrose finally has a firm release date. Announced during the recent Triple-i Initiative Showcase, developer Windrose Crew and publisher Pocketpair confirmed that the game will hit Steam early access next Tuesday, April 14. This launch represents a major evolution for the project, which originally started life as a free-to-play MMO titled Crosswind. Following valuable community feedback during alpha testing, the studio smartly pivoted to a focused, premium experience built for solo players or co-op crews of up to four.
Set in an alternate 18th-century Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy, the game drops players onto a remote island as shipwrecked castaways. Survival requires the usual mix of foraging, hunting, crafting, and base building before you can build a vessel and take to the open ocean. Beyond basic survival loops, Windrose features procedurally generated archipelagos, hand-crafted dungeons, and Souls-inspired melee combat alongside tactical ship-to-ship battles. The early access drop is substantial, offering around 50 to 70 hours of playtime across three distinct biomes, roughly 30 islands, and three playable ship types.
Early access is expected to run for up to two and a half years as the team builds toward the 1.0 release, which will add roughly 50 percent more content. Given how much traction the recent Steam demo gained, the community is clearly ready to test out the faction system, town hubs, and archipelago-spanning quests. For the full details on the launch and developer roadmaps, you can check out the original report on Eurogamer.
Original reporting by Matt Wales at Eurogamer
Tags: Windrose, Pocketpair, Steam Early Access, Survival Games, PC Gaming
Original article: Eurogamer