Windrose

Windrose is a co-op survival-craft game (survival with crafting) set in an alternate Age of Piracy, made by Kraken Express (about 60 people, Tashkent, Uzbekistan) and published worldwide by the studio itself. In Japan the publisher is Pocketpair Publishing, the same studio that made Palworld and opened a publishing label with its earnings. How the game came about: Windrose grew out of the cancelled F2P PvP MMO Crosswind. The team saw that players preferred PvE exploration to competitive PvP, set aside years of work and rebuilt the project as a premium survival game with co-op.

The setup: the legendary pirate Blackbeard (Edward Teach) sinks your ship while chasing a mystical artifact. You are shot and thrown overboard, but that same artifact saves your life. You come to on an unfamiliar archipelago and start from scratch: chop resources, craft, build a base, rebuild your ship and gather a crew. The main story line takes 50-70 hours.

The combat loop is built around soulslite combat (calculated fights where timing matters, not button mashing) and naval battles: you can trade cannon fire at range or close in to board. The ship is customized to your style: the nimble Ketch, the versatile Brig or the heavy Frigate. Four pirate factions, Brethren of the Coast, Buccaneers, Smugglers and People of Tortuga, open distinctive ship blueprints as your reputation grows.

The world: about 30 procedurally generated islands with 90+ handcrafted points of interest and the city of Tortuga. Three biomes in Early Access: Coastal Jungle (tropical jungle), Foothills and Cursed Swamps (cursed marshes, where the mystical side of the setting is felt most strongly). The main antagonist is Blackbeard's fleet with supernatural powers. This is a pirate survival-craft game with a mystical layer, not an action RPG in the spirit of Diablo.

Co-op: the game is fully playable solo offline or in co-op with up to 8 players. The developers honestly recommend groups of up to 4 players, since performance drops at 8 players in the later stages. Self-hosted and dedicated servers are available.

Scale: 1 million copies were sold in 6 days after the Early Access launch and 2 million in a month; $30 million in revenue in the first 10 days. Peak online was about 222,134 concurrent players (a SteamDB record, April 19, 2026). On Steam the game is rated Very Positive: 88% positive from about 41 thousand reviews, and the score has been stable since release.

Early Access: the core gameplay loop is fully playable, with 3 biomes, 3 ships, 4 factions, building, crafting, progression, NPC workers and reputation. The developers estimate 1.5-2.5 years until version 1.0; the final version will add new biomes, ships and story. Buying an EA key gives access to all future updates at no extra cost. Localization: interface and subtitles in Russian, voice-over in English.

Windrose is a co-op pirate survival game set in an alternate Age of Piracy, made by Kraken Express (Tashkent). Blackbeard sank your ship in pursuit of a mystical artifact. Survive on an archipelago, build a base, rebuild your ship, fight bosses and take part in naval battles. Play solo or in co-op with up to 8 players. Viral hit of 2026: 2 million copies in a month. Interface and subtitles in Russian. Early Access on Steam.