Windrose, formerly Crosswind, has officially launched into Early Access and promises a soulslike pirate adventure driven by exploration and discovery. It also notably passed 1 million sales in the first week, making it clear that the gaming community is hungry for the exact recipe it’s cooking up. As a recovering Sea of Thieves player, I also consider myself one of those players hungry for another game where I could live out my loot goblin dreams of lootin’ and scootin’ from island to island and ransacking enemy pirate ships for more loot than I can stash in my cargo hold. That’s why it makes it that much harder to write the following review.
Windrose is a solid Early Access experience that varies significantly depending on whether you play solo or in co-op.
I know, hot take. Go ahead and tie me up. I’ll start walking myself towards the plank. Windrose has a lot working for it at the moment, with procedurally generated islands, active soulslike combat, and building mechanics on par with Conan Exiles and Valheim. However, it also has a lot working against it.
Taking the Wind Out of My Sails
Sailing is one of Windrose’s most important systems, but travel between islands often feels slower and more passive than it should. Compared to other pirate-themed games like Sea of Thieves, where sailing is an active part of the experience shaped by wind direction, ship control, and environmental threats, Windrose’s sailing felt noticeably less dynamic. In those games, even basic movement across the sea carries tension and engagement because the world itself actively affects how you travel.
In Windrose, I rarely felt that same sense of momentum. The most exciting moments at sea didn’t come from sailing itself, but from incidental chaos like enemy pirate encounters or co-op coordination going wrong as we scrambled to turn ships and avoid crashing into each other. Those moments were fun, but they weren’t really about sailing as a system, which made the quieter stretches between them feel even more empty by comparison.
A lot of this frustration is probably tied to the lack of meaningful wind-driven movement. There are even visual indicators of wind direction in the world, which make it feel like there should be a stronger system underneath the surface. Instead, it rarely translates into anything that changes how sailing actually feels moment to moment, which makes the system feel strangely underutilized.
While there is a fast travel system through placeable bells, it still requires prior exploration and resources to construct them. As a result, I still found myself spending a significant amount of time on the open ocean, but without the same level of engagement or environmental pressure that makes sailing feel meaningful in Sea of Thieves. This often turned sailing into something I wanted to skip rather than experience, to the point where fast travel became a relief rather than a choice.
If I had to compare the feel of sailing in Windrose to other games, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is probably the closest reference point. Rather than feeling tightly driven by systems like wind direction or environmental pressure, sailing leans more toward a slower, more atmospheric style of traversal. My favorite part of that kind of experience is starting up a round of sea shanties while sailing across open water, which is made even more memorable knowing they are performed by Sean Dagher, who also contributed to the shanties in Black Flag. There is something inherently immersive about sailing into the sea with a crew singing as storms gather on the horizon, but in Windrose, that atmosphere often does more work than the sailing systems themselves in creating engagement.
Over time, sailing started to feel less like a strong solo system and more like something that works best when shared or disrupted by emergent co-op moments, rather than carrying the experience on its own.
Awash in a Sea of Sameness
Each subsequent island I visited was technically different, but they all carried the same underlying sense of sameness. I feel a bit guilty saying that, especially since the islands are procedurally generated (which is something I usually appreciate), but they rarely felt distinct or memorable. That feeling only became more noticeable once I reached the Foothills. I was genuinely excited for a change in scale and scenery, but it ultimately felt like a variation of what I had already seen rather than something meaningfully new.
That lack of strong visual or structural identity also affected how I engaged with the game’s story. There is clearly a larger narrative at the center of Windrose, but I struggled to stay connected to it. I’m a captain, I lost my ship, and I’m trying to get my bearings again, but I often found myself drifting away from the narrative instead of being pulled into it. For all I know, at this point, I could be gathering my crew to sail into the Grand Line to find the one piece. I absolutely love lore in games and usually take my time reading optional dialogue, but here it rarely held my attention. It’s possible the fragmented presentation style contributed to that disconnect, with story bits arriving in short, easy-to-miss bursts.
It was lag, I swear!
Combat in Windrose has its moments of both success and frustration. I enjoy more active, timing-based combat systems where blocking, parrying, and stamina management all matter, similar in spirit to Conan Exiles. At its best, Windrose captures that kind of engagement, especially when encounters feel responsive and deliberate.
However, there were also moments where the system felt inconsistent. Like preparing to parry an incoming attack only to be overwhelmed unexpectedly, or being unable to react due to stamina depletion at critical moments. I even encountered situations where hit detection and blocking didn’t seem to align properly, which made some fights feel less like a test of skill and more like a question of reliability.
A Pirate is Nothing Without Her Crew
While many of my frustrations with Windrose came from its systems feeling uneven in solo play, the experience shifted noticeably in co-op. A lot of the core issues like slower sailing, repetitive exploration, and occasional combat inconsistencies, were easier to overlook when playing with others. In many ways, co-op feels like the context where the game’s systems actually begin to click together properly.
Building a huge pirate base together, dividing tasks, and gradually improving our setup gave the experience a stronger sense of progression than I often felt alone. Some of the best moments came from overcoming difficult boss fights as a group, sharing loot and weapons, and slowly turning a starting camp into something that felt like a real pirate haven.
Even when the core loop became repetitive, playing with friends added structure and purpose that the solo experience often lacked. In that sense, co-op doesn’t fix Windrose’s underlying issues, but it does feel like the way many of its systems are meant to be experienced at their best.
I also found myself more invested in moments like customizing my ship, Calypso, and setting out as part of a small fleet, where coordination made larger threats feel manageable. In those moments, the game’s systems felt less strained, not because they changed, but because the social experience filled in the gaps they left behind.
To Be Continued…
Windrose is a game I really wanted to love in solo play, but just couldn’t fully click with on its own. A lot of its systems feel a bit uneven individually, and while none of them are broken, together they can make the solo experience feel a bit flat.
But the moment I played it with friends, that changed pretty quickly.
Suddenly, the slower parts didn’t feel as tedious, because we were talking through them, building things together, and turning the game into something shared instead of something I was just moving through alone. Base-building felt bigger, progress felt more meaningful, and even repetitive moments had a “we’re in this together” energy that made them far more enjoyable than I expected.
Because of that, I still think Windrose is worth playing, but with an important caveat: it really shines in co-op. That’s where most of my best moments came from, and where its systems feel like they finally settle into something cohesive.
We’re still in Early Access, and it shows. There’s a strong foundation here, but it doesn’t feel fully realized yet. And honestly, I’m excited to see where it goes from here. Windrose feels like one of those games that just needs time to cook a bit longer, but the ingredients are absolutely there.
