Fun sailing, naval combat and sea shanties
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“when your on your ship and press B the captain and the crew sing old pirate songs...it's awesome”
Steam review · 74.6 h played ↗
Windrose
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 87%Very Positive · 87%Kraken Express2026Open World Survival Craft · Survival · Base Building
$29.99
Open on Steam ↗US Steam price, checked 5 h ago
The verdict
A Valheim-style pirate survival game with great building, sailing and sea shanties, held back by punishing land combat and months without updates. Skip it if you dislike souls-like combat.
Great for
Co-op groups who love base building, sailing and Valheim-style progression
Main risk
Punishing land combat and almost no new content since the April launch
What changed in the last 30 days
158 recent reviews
Many recent negative reviewers say the game has had little or no content since April while the devs promote merch and plushies. Some also report crashes. Fairly confident this drives the dip.
158 recent reviews
What players love
Excellent, flexible base building
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“This game has the best building mechanics I've ever played with and that is a fact.”
Steam review · 188.7 h played ↗
Beautiful graphics and atmosphere
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“Stunningly beautiful, The physics are remarkably good.”
Steam review · 112.9 h played ↗
Great co-op fun with friends
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews
“I also played the whole thing with friends, and the game shines even more in co op.”
Steam review · 74.9 h played ↗
Good value and impressive polish for early access
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews
“100 hours for $25 is a great deal”
Steam review · 93.1 h played ↗
Many quality-of-life features
Mentioned in ~1 in 10 positive reviews
“There’s no weapon durability, so you don’t have to worry about things breaking or wasting inventory slots carrying repair kits.”
Steam review · 110.2 h played ↗
What players complain about
Clunky, punishing land combat
Mentioned in ~2 in 5 negative reviews
“Non-ship based combat is horrible. Animation locks on attacks leave you too open to getting hit by an enemy”
Steam review · 22.7 h played ↗
Repetitive, grindy gameplay with little to do
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“POI's and exploring is extremely repetitive after a couple islands.”
Steam review · 55 h played ↗
No content updates and merch backlash
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“GAME HAS NOT HAD ANY CONTENT ADDED SINCE EA LAUNCH!”
Steam review · 48.9 h played ↗
Repetitive, shallow naval combat and ship spam
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews
“You literally Cant move without enemy ship spawns appearing all around you every 2-3 minutes”
Steam review · 121.9 h played ↗
SSD wear, crashes and freezes
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews
“DO NOT PLAY UNTIL THE FIX THE READ/WRITE ISSUE ON SSD.”
Steam review · 107.8 h played ↗
XP only from quests and exploration
Mentioned in ~1 in 21 negative reviews
“they thought it would be smart to only give xp for quests and exploration.”
Steam review · 10.9 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: PlayableController support30 GB
Minimum
OSWindows® 10 (64-bit)
ProcessorIntel® Core™ i7-8700K / AMD® Ryzen™ 7 2700X
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA® GTX™ 1080 Ti / AMD® Radeon™ RX 6800
Storage30 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows® 11 or later (64-bit)
ProcessorIntel® Core™ i7-10700 / AMD® Ryzen™ 7 5800X
Memory32 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA® RTX™ 3080 / AMD® Radeon™ RX 6800 XT
Storage30 GB available space
OSWindows® 10 (64-bit)
ProcessorIntel® Core™ i7-8700K / AMD® Ryzen™ 7 2700X
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA® GTX™ 1080 Ti / AMD® Radeon™ RX 6800
Storage30 GB available space
More games to check
Other games we’ve read the reviews for
Permafrost
Mostly Positive · 72%
+ Atmospheric frozen world and visuals
− Poor optimization, low FPS and stutter
analyzed 9 d ago
Palworld
Very Positive · 95%
+ Pals as workers and base building
− Late-game grind
analyzed 21 d ago
−40%
Soulmask
Mostly Positive · 77%
+ Tribe management and automation
− Clunky, confusing UI and tribe menus
analyzed 3 d ago
How to Survive 2
Mixed · 69%
+ Great with friends in co-op
− Worse than the first game, no story or open world
analyzed 4 d ago
Weekly digest
Fresh games worth a look, in your inbox
The most interesting games we’ve just analyzed, once a week.Once a week we send the most interesting games we’ve just analyzed: the verdict, top pros and cons, and what changed. No spam.
One email a week · unsubscribe in one click