There’s a sort of familiarity within genres that we get used to. A point where devs kinda look at the mechanics and go, ‘yeah, we can’t really do better than this’. Survival games have you punching trees. You’ve always punched trees, you will always punch trees. Tree punching is where it’s at.

These foundational elements are important, as they mean you need less time designing a tutorial and balancing the basic elements. The comparison to a song is apt. Imagine making a new song with brand new instruments. Or making one that’s only drums. Sure, technically it’s a song, but I mean, is it really? These foundational bits allow for a stable base from which you can build new ideas.

Windrose generally keeps the foundations in place, though tweaks some bits. Harvesting material, mining, smelting, construction is all pretty much like you’d expect. You need a spawn location, you need a roof to place buildings, you need coal to make copper, you place extra buildings to unlock higher tiered crafting abilities.

Where it tweaks the model a tad is in the combat space, and I’d be hard pressed to argue this model works as I would have expected. Before I get to this, I want to remind people that there are difficulty sliders you can set when you are at the login screen. There are really no death penalties here except time to reach your corpse – your call how many corpse runs are too much.

Ground Combat

• First, and importantly, you need food. That boosts your HP to manageable levels. If you don’t have food, a level 1 boar will kill you in 2 hits. Get food. And know that dying has you lose the food effect.
• Related, have bandages for a HoT, and try to keep a pack of healing potions for tough spots. I use bandages all the time.
• I do enjoy i-frame combat (dodging), where timing is key. I enjoy when there’s a difficulty to remember a pattern. That’s present here.
• I also enjoy parry combat, where you can retaliate. That is also present here.
• Dodging ‘red attacks’ is timing based, more like a parry in terms of timing. Charging boars from the jungle are likely to 1-shot you with no/poor food from this attack.
  • Some enemies (alpha wolves in particular) have moves that are insanely hard to dodge, with very odd hitboxes. Expect to die until you learn all the patterns.
• Both of those systems require a particular level of fine tuning, and neither of them are designed for 1 vs many combat situations. The net effect is what I call mosquito fights, where you attack, then run like hell waiting for an opening, and repeat. The first boss is a major skill check on your ability to dodge, at least in solo play.
• Ranged attacks are not very powerful, require gunpowder (which can’t be crafted in the first zone), and the combat materials stack extremely poorly. Think of it as an extra attack rather than a primary attack, and you’ll be ok.
• All told, this gives one particular weapon a ridiculous advantage, the Rapier of a Thousand Cuts – which is in a buried chest right next to when you start the game. This thing applies a stacking DoT, which melts most enemies.

Ship Combat

• In nearly all cases, your ship will be faster than any enemy. They’ll still get some potshots at you, but you can outrun them.
• Repair Kits. These heal your ship, but reduce their value if you get damaged. You can also repair you ship for much less at your home warf.
• Cannons. Upgrade them for more damage. When aiming, know there’s movement at play so at distance aim ahead of a ship and as close to the waterline as possible. With 3 canons, you want to run at 3/4 sail speed and try to get all 3 shots on cooldown. This is very similar to other games, nothing fancy.
• Keel. Upgrade for slightly more armor. Eventually you’ll get enough faction for a rare version that allows you to heal while taking damage, and that one is worth maxing.
• Naval Tactics (the book slot). Don’t worry about this for a while, til at least after the first boss.
• Boarding Gear. Upgrade this to max. More in a sec.
• Picking targets. Always take out the lowest level enemy possible first. And try to avoid going in circles. For 1vs5 fights, you need to strafe the entire group and learn to pick targets effectively.
• Boarding. Unless there’s a chest icon above the enemy ship, don’t ever board. There’s no reward and the melee combat is likely to kill you. If there is a chest icon, YMMV. If your boarding gear is higher than the enemy level, the NPCs will do the job for you. If not, you’ll need a gun. If you think you’ll lose, summon your tiny raft, jump to it, then back to the ship and the boarding will reset and you can sink the enemy ship.
• Eventually you get to craft a Brig, then a Frigate. They cost an absolute fortune.
• Ship combat itself is fun in most times, and presents the best way to acquire money + faction rep items.

Exploration

Your starter island has pretty much everything you need to get to the first boss. The need to leave is based almost exclusively on exploration & quests. For that, you need a ship. And while on the ship, you want to press F to change the view. Look at the horizon for new islands. Quest markers will point you around the map, and it’s good to keep an eye on all islands along the path. Your ship opens up more of the map and can detect points of interest from a decent distance. The world map is substantially large. When you land, there are really two main options:

• Exploration. Land on an island. Immediately craft a tent for a spawn point. Make sure you’re fed and have empty-ish bags. Explore the island and place tents near ? points. When the island is done, head to shore, board the ship and return home to port and empty your bags. If you die while exploring, it’s a judgment call if you want to feed yourself again. Taking on a half dozen pirates with a pair of musketeers… you are going to die again, no question about it.
• Farming. If the island has points of interest that continually spawn items (hover over the point to see what spawns), you will place a Bell on the beach so you can easily return. Items (not chests) normally respawn after 3 in-game days. The only teleport restriction is having only 10 Bells placed, easy to manage.

Note that major points of interest have their own teleport locations. This includes all faction hubs, Tortuga, and boss locations.

If it isn’t terribly clear yet, this game has a very odd difficulty curve. It’s not ‘deathsquito’ level painful here, not even remotely close. But do get used to dying, a LOT, and having player skill much more than stats determine your level of progress. A trule palate cleanser after a binge of ARPGs.