Release Date: April 14, 2026 (Early access)
Genre: action, adventure, survival, RPG
Developer: Kraken Express
Publisher: Kraken Express, Pocketpair Publishing (Japan)
Platform: PC (Windows)
Interface and Subtitles Language: English, Spanish (Spain), Italian, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, German, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish, French, Japanese
Voice Acting Language: English
Multiplayer: online co-op up to 8 players
Version: 0.10.0.6 (May 22, 2026)
About this game
Salty wind hits your face, but your pockets are empty and your only weapon is a rusty axe. Windrose kills any pirate romance on the spot. You start out on a muddy shore where every step into the jungle threatens a fatal end. The challenge you throw down to Blackbeard quickly drops into the background. The real task becomes primitive survival between hostile empires and ancient creatures rising from the depths.
Choosing to download Windrose on PC pulls you into an atmosphere of constant pressure. Forget about quietly gathering resources. Peaceful ore mining in a cave can be cut short by an ambush at any second, and a trip into open sea turns into a brutal boarding action. From the very first minutes, the combat mechanics here strip you of the right to make a mistake. Miss a parry, lose your breath, lose control of the deck — and the entire hold full of precious cargo sinks to the bottom forever.
Survival is built on cold calculation. You’ll be balancing between a sharp shortage of supplies and the constant risk of losing the ship.
- A map without memorized routes. The ocean reshuffles its islands every run, but the most dangerous dungeons are hand-built. Every expedition breaks the familiar paths and forces you to study the horizon with maximum caution.
- Every swing costs stamina. Land combat runs by the harsh rules of a soulslike. Victory demands perfect timing, precise parries, and tight stamina management. A rapier or a heavy cutlass imposes its own pace on the duel, where one extra swing leads to a quick death.
- The wind decides the fight. Your ship is the main trump card. Maneuver in light schooners or soak damage on heavy frigates. The outcome of a clash is decided by careful wind reading, distance control, and a timely order to board.
- A base as a foothold. A coastal shelter serves as a small island of relative safety. Here you smelt metal and forge armor. The further the ship sails from the harbor, the harder the risk of losing valuable loot on the way home presses on you.
- A crew shares duties and risks. Crewmates change the rhythm of the game. While one patches a breach, the second descends into the hold, and the third watches the enemy sails. Coordinated work speeds up progress, but a breakdown in communication quickly sends the crew to the bottom.
- Contracts and factions. Jobs on Tortuga turn lumber-cutting into a full-scale war. Alliances and betrayals dictate new, even riskier vectors for expeditions.
Trailer:
Windrose turns a sea voyage into a grueling endurance test. Success depends directly on the ability to ration provisions properly, patch the hull on the fly, and pull out a win under total scarcity.
Minimum:
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K / AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
- RAM: 16 GB
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 6800 (DirectX 12)
- Disk space: 30 GB (SSD required)
Recommended:
- OS: Windows 11
- Processor: Intel Core i7-10700 / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
- RAM: 32 GB
- Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 3080 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (DirectX 12)
- Disk space: 30 GB (SSD required)
Greetings, Captains! We have just deployed a fresh update aimed at refining your experience. We are actively reviewing your feedback and remain committed to delivering ongoing optimizations and fixes to…
Two Million Strong: A Landmark Voyage Greetings, Captains! We have reached a monumental milestone: two million courageous souls have ventured into the Archipelago to join us on this grand nautical…
Greetings, Captains! We have deployed a fresh update focused on stabilizing Steam Cloud saves and resolving persistent corruption issues. We are keeping a close watch on your reports and stand…
Reviews
Finished Windrose in about 50 hours, playing super casually, doing a ton of building and I loved every moment of it.
I also played the whole thing with friends, and the game shines even more in co op. Exploring, building, and taking on challenges together just feels smoother with a squad.
This is exactly the kind of game I always hoped New World or Skull & Bones would become, exploration driven, atmospheric, and rewarding without exposing the grind.
The world feels great to exist in, the building system kept me hooked for hours, and the pacing let me enjoy the game at my own rhythm. For an early release, it’s already delivering more heart and identity than many big $$$ titles.
Can’t wait for the next biome. If the devs keep this up Windrose is going to be something special.
Windrose is a simple but genuinely fun pirate survival game. The building mechanics are easy to understand and enjoyable, and there is a nice satisfaction in slowly expanding and improving your base.
That said, the resource management can get tedious. The game really needs better quality of life features, especially a way to track how much of each material you still need for crafting or building. By the time I reached the endgame, though, most of that became less important.
The ship gameplay is probably the weakest part. It feels very bare-bones, almost like one-fifth of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag’s naval gameplay. Most of the time, it is just going from point A to point B or boarding other boats for missions. Still, I think there is real potential here if the developers expand the ship mechanics. The sea shanties were definitely a plus, but I wish there were more of them, closer to what Black Flag had.
Things I expected from a pirate game:
– Rum
– Treasure
– Sea shanties
– Boarding enemy ships
Things I actually did in this pirate game:
– Died to a chicken
– Died to a pig
– Died to a goat (in a cave??)
– Died to 3 pigs AND a chicken at the same time
– Cried
– Crafted wooden stick
– Died to same pig
– Unlocked musket
– Committed genocide against the pig species
In summary: I came for Blackbeard, I stayed for revenge against livestock.
Blackbeard can wait. The boars eat first.
Growth is painful.
10/10
The Best Pirate Coop Game we’ve ever gotten.
Maybe 60% of what Blackflag is but with Coop.
Pretty much Velhiem but as Pirates which is epic!
A Must play for anyone with a group that played Ark, Velhiem, minecraft…
It needs Sharks, Water Monsters, Kraken, More Fishing, Whaling, Ways to Sell your silver, gold, fish..
More NPC and non military life
Fishing boat NPCs
NPCs that can do task. IT make healing with 60% of supplies until stopped
Sort chest in campfire area… NPCs should be able to do stuff
Camera should scroll out with mouse wheel when on ship in F menu
Top down/iso view
Coop shared map/table to share
Coop shared pings
Map cords
Cats, Dogs and more Pets
Ship /personal pets
Underwater gameplay
Shoot land cannons
Optional Raids when you use the Large Signal Fire
Got gored by a boar.
Got pecked to death by a dodo.
Got skewered by a pirate.
Got puked on by some undead horror.
Fell off the top of a tall ruin and died because I ran out of food buff.
Built my own little pirate town, got my own ship, sunk some of Blackbeard’s fleet and plundered their booty. Check.
I am having a wonderful time with this game!
