Yep, it’s time once more to take an immediate temperature check of a just-launched early access game. We’re of course talking about Windrose, the PvE piratical survival sandbox from Windrose Crew – apparently newly renamed to Kraken Express – which started early access just this week and appears to be making a strong initial showing by most accounts.
In terms of raw data, the game’s concurrency on Steam hit a peak of 69,544 (nice) and roared its way to the top sellers list on the platform. The game appears to be enjoyed by those who have bought in so far, with user reviews at “very positive” that praise its visuals, exploration, naval combat, and challenge, though some reviews also call things imbalanced in favor of enemies in the early going.
Naturally, this onrush of players has caused server problems to rear their head, as the devs note on Discord that most bug reports are about multiplayer and connection problems. “We’re doing our best to resolve all incoming issues, but due to number of players (and requests) we can’t address everything immediately,” the studio writes. “Most of the issues seem to be related to P2P coop and dedicated servers. Investigating them requires logs and time.”
Right now the game can be played only on PC via Steam or Epic Games Store, and that’s likely going to remain the way of things until after its full release. “The team doesn’t have any other updates about Windrose on consoles but do want to reiterate that they are enthusiastic about eventually coming to consoles but are focused on 1.0 launch first,” a spokesperson told Gamespot.
