Sail The Seas In ‘Windward’, Some Thoughts On This Arrrr Game

Windward came out of Early Access in May, and I finally had some time to sit down and give it a proper go, and what I found was quite interesting.

It’s one game I was on the fence about, but I’m glad I did the push and grabbed a copy.

About the game (Official)
Designed from the start to be a fully procedural co-op game, Windward can be played by yourself, but it truly comes alive when playing with friends. Start by generating a procedural world that will be unique to you, design your own custom faction then sail forward fighting pirates, trading with towns, doing quests or simply exploring -- it's up to you how you want to play.

As you sail about you will find resources you can make use of, upgrades for your ship, new towns that will ask your assistance, and as you get farther out from the starting area -- various pirates that will attempt to take what's rightfully yours. Combat experience will let you unlock new talents and abilities to make that particular line of work easier.

My thoughts on Windward

My first thought was honestly “wow look at that water”, and it still is everytime I boot the game up. The graphics for the water is really quite beautiful, and it’s part of the reason I’m really liking Windward.

Sadly, some of the graphics aren’t as outstanding: the buildings in the ports in particular are all a bit plain, but luckily the majority of your time is spent at sea. Seeing sunken ships below the water, and seagulls flying around is always great.



One major annoyance was a popup telling me a nearby town was taken over by pirates. That’s quite cool that it happens, but when it pops into the middle of the screen while I’m trying to sink four enemy ships on my own, it’s a nuisance.

I’m not entirely sure of the point to Windward—I mean apart from doing as many quests as you can, and sinking as many pirates as you can. It’s much like all the survival games around, only you control a ship.

It does tend to surprise you at times, like with pirates taking over towns, regions send out a call for help which turn into challenges. If you initiate a challenge, you’re sent to somewhere else to take care of the situation. It’s a pretty good idea to have gold ready for these challenges, as you will probably need to hire some more ships, and send them to different towns to stop them getting re-taken.

I did notice one bug during the challenge, I purchased a better ship and it seemed to warp me back to a different town. I’m not sure if that’s a bug or a feature, but to me that doesn’t seem right.

The other bug I noticed, is that after finishing the first challenge it told me to do, it gave me a “Talent” point. The icon it told me to click was wrong, so it’s only very minor. Other than that it’s been “smooth sailing” (I had to get that joke in somewhere!). I’ve also notified the developer of this bug, and they said “Thanks”, so I guess they will be fixing it.

The developer seems very active, and the changelog full of fixes and additions in June alone is quite something. Good to see it getting great support!

There is no end-game by the looks of it, so it’s something to just sink hours into. This is mainly due to it not having a story, but there’s plenty to do, and I’ve only just scratched the surface.

It can feel a little lonely by yourself, but luckily friends can join in anytime you’re playing if you allow them to, and it has dedicated servers to hop into and make friends/enemies. I do suggest levelling up a little yourself before you jump in online, as I tried a few servers, and all were full of high level players.

Final thoughts: It’s very much a game to get lost in, before I knew it an hour had passed and I was enjoying sinking pirates. It’s not a fast paced game, so if constant action is your thing you probably won’t dig it, but if you like a slower paced open-world RPG that involves sailing, you will love it.

Check out Windward on Steam now. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.