Windrose is a co-op PvE multiplayer pirating survivalbox with a Steam demo available now

Windrose. It’s not just the name of a band that covered the song Diggy Diggy Hole (that’s Wind Rose, technically); it’s the name of an in-development PvE survival sandbox from Windrose Crew that’s made its debut during this year’s Steam Next Fest.

Described as “a PvE survival adventure in the Age of Piracy,” Windrose lets up to four players come together for all sorts of piratical survivalbox shenanigans like questing, fighting bosses based on both real-world and mythical characters, and plenty of combat and exploration across land and sea as players roam in procedurally generated biomes.

The current demo provides a “focused early slice” of the game, offering up its first three islands, some early tutorial-leaning quests, and portions of its core gameplay loops for survival, foes, and loot. Co-op is available through hosted sessions, though Windrose Crew does admit that it’s experiencing some connectivity issues there and dedicated servers will be available at its eventual early access launch.

Those connection issues are likely because players like what they see so far and word of mouth is spreading: The studio has confirmed that the game has achieved over one million wishlists thus far. As a way of saying thanks, the devs have expressed their appreciation and have put out a sizzle reel with their own rendition of Drunken Sailor. It doesn’t get much more pirate-y than that, folks.