{"id":64953,"date":"2026-04-10T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=64953"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:23:08","slug":"open-world-pirate-game-windrose-is-a-souls-lite-survival-adventure-made-by-a-group-of-hardcore-gamers-producer-talks-about-the-games-orig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/interviews\/open-world-pirate-game-windrose-is-a-souls-lite-survival-adventure-made-by-a-group-of-hardcore-gamers-producer-talks-about-the-games-orig\/","title":{"rendered":"Open-world pirate game Windrose\u00a0is a \u201csouls-lite\u201d survival\u00a0adventure\u00a0made by a group of\u00a0hardcore\u00a0gamers.\u00a0Producer talks about\u00a0the game\u2019s origin and huge shift from MMO to a full-priced\u00a0title\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Windrose Crew and&nbsp;Pocketpair&nbsp;Publishing have announced that the&nbsp;pirate survival&nbsp;adventure&nbsp;game&nbsp;<strong>Windrose<\/strong>&nbsp;will enter Early Access starting April 14. Following its&nbsp;demo launch on Steam&nbsp;back&nbsp;in February, the game has quickly become one of the most&nbsp;anticipated&nbsp;games on the platform, amassing over 1,500,000&nbsp;Wishlists.&nbsp;Ahead of Windrose\u2019s upcoming Early Access&nbsp;release, AUTOMATON&nbsp;sat down with the developer to find out more about how the game was created.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Windrose - Regional Publisher Trailer - Pocketpair Publishing\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_eokG81VrxY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Windrose is an open-world survival game set in the Age of Piracy. The player, once the captain of a pirate crew,&nbsp;loses everything&nbsp;\u2013 their&nbsp;ship,&nbsp;crew&nbsp;and fortune,&nbsp;in an attack by the powerful pirate Blackbeard.&nbsp;Washed ashore amidst the wreckage of&nbsp;your&nbsp;ship, you must survive and rebuild your pirate life from zero.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On land, gameplay revolves around building,&nbsp;crafting&nbsp;and survival. Once&nbsp;you\u2019ve&nbsp;secured a ship again, you can assemble a crew and&nbsp;take on&nbsp;&nbsp;battles.&nbsp;The game offers ample variety and customization when it comes to ships&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;from agile ketches to&nbsp;versatile brigs and imposing frigates, accommodating different playstyles.&nbsp;You can also gather resources and build bases, and by recruiting NPCs to develop your settlement, you can further boost&nbsp;productivity. Windrose supports both singleplayer and co-op multiplayer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without further ado, we\u00a0bring\u00a0you our interview with\u00a0Phil, aka Yar_master, producer at development studio Windrose Crew, who told us\u00a0about how this project came to be and the team of creators behind it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1519\" height=\"849\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1519px) 100vw, 1519px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-64958\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-001.jpg 1519w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-001-380x212.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-001-768x429.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014<strong>Could you please introduce yourself and your team?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong><br>Hey,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0Phil,\u00a0aka\u00a0Yar_master\u00a0from Windrose Crew. Thanks for your interest in our game. We appreciate it a lot!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014<\/strong><strong>Even at the demo stage, Windrose feels very polished and high in quality. Could you tell us about the size of the development team and the backgrounds of your staff members?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>Thanks, we did our best with the demo! Our team is currently around 60 people, plus we occasionally outsource some tasks. Most of our team members are pretty&nbsp;senior, with several jobs in game development under their belt. However, Windrose&nbsp;is&nbsp;our first game as a team.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014What made Windrose Crew decide to create a pirate game? Do you simply love pirates? If so, were there any&nbsp;particular works&nbsp;that inspired&nbsp;you?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>It\u2019s a combination of what we wanted to create and what we thought the players would want to play. We indeed love the pirate theme, and believe this niche is still underserved today. At the same time,&nbsp;we love survival games. We took inspiration from many great games like Assassin\u2019s Creed Black Flag,&nbsp;Valheim, Enshrouded and others to create our own&nbsp;PvE&nbsp;pirate game with survival at its core, but with a strong focus on adventure and exploration.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1517\" height=\"853\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1517px) 100vw, 1517px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-003.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-64959\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-003.jpg 1517w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-003-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-003-768x432.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<strong>\u2014Are there any pirate or seafaring adventure games that your team particularly likes? If there are any you have played extensively, we would also love to hear&nbsp;roughly how&nbsp;many hours you spent with them.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>With a team of 60,&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;not easy to give an answer&nbsp;on behalf of the whole team.&nbsp;But overall, the overwhelming majority of our team are passionate hardcore gamers with thousands of hours in their favorite games, be it survival games, souls or pirates.&nbsp;The universal consensus in the team, I believe, is that Assassin\u2019s Creed Black Flag is the best pirate game of all time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014What would you say is the standout feature that makes Windrose unique&nbsp;among existing survival games on Steam themed around pirates,&nbsp;shipbuilding&nbsp;and the like?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>\u00a0<br>Well, more pirate games\u00a0are\u00a0certainly a win for everyone! Windrose, though, has a unique combination of adventure with questing and exploration,\u00a0a\u00a0comprehensive building\/crafting system,\u00a0souls-lite style\u00a0combat\u00a0and\u00a0an\u00a0engaging naval part of the game with seamless ship-land transition.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a challenging goal, but we hope to create the ultimate swashbuckling adventure for the people who hear the call of the sea and want to\u00a0hoist\u00a0the black flag!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014In&nbsp;a previous&nbsp;interview, you described the combat in&nbsp;Windrose as&nbsp;drawing some influence from the Souls series, including parrying mechanics, while still being&nbsp;accessible, a so-called&nbsp;\u201csouls-lite.\u201d What made you decide to adopt that style of combat for this game, even in a milder form?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>We believe this style of combat is very engaging and fits well with the theme of the game, with certain adaptations. For example, we&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;use dodge&nbsp;roll&nbsp;and have dash&nbsp;+&nbsp;parry instead, because we&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;believe a pirate would dodge&nbsp;roll! While&nbsp;doing our research&nbsp;in the&nbsp;early stages, we noticed that a lot of survival games&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;put that much emphasis on combat systems, so we wanted Windrose to stand out in it.&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;a very challenging&nbsp;goal&nbsp;though,&nbsp;and surely there is still much work to do!&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br><strong>\u2014Your&nbsp;demo attracted more than 20,000 concurrent players on Steam. How did that feel for the team?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>Slightly surreal and very humbling. Of course, going into&nbsp;Steam&nbsp;Next Fest with approximately&nbsp;800,000&nbsp;Wishlists, we were expecting some degree of traction for the demo, but we certainly did not expect it to explode like that. Of course,&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;a great \u201cproblem\u201d to have, but frankly speaking,&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;also a huge responsibility. We will keep working hard to live up to&nbsp;expectations!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014Windrose had already been drawing&nbsp;quite a bit of&nbsp;attention before the demo, but the response&nbsp;afterward seemed to explode&nbsp;all at once. What do you think were the main reasons behind&nbsp;the&nbsp;success?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>The main reason is the ability&nbsp;for anyone interested to try the game. Also, we put in a lot of effort to increase the scope of the demo in terms of content and to make co-op work as well. But it was certainly worth it. It seems&nbsp;players&nbsp;had a lot of fun, and with friends, too. We still see some people&nbsp;clocking dozens and even hundreds of hours in the demo,&nbsp;which&nbsp;is honestly amazing. We are very honored and thankful to all the players, content&nbsp;creators&nbsp;and media who took their time to explore the demo.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1522\" height=\"850\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1522px) 100vw, 1522px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-002.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-64960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-002.jpg 1522w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-002-380x212.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-002-768x429.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014More than&nbsp;800,000 people&nbsp;have played the demo, and&nbsp;you\u2019ve&nbsp;surpassed 1.5 million&nbsp;Wishlists, which are&nbsp;truly remarkable numbers. Did you&nbsp;anticipate&nbsp;this level of success from the beginning? I imagine you also received a huge amount of feedback,&nbsp;was it ever overwhelming?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>We&nbsp;were not&nbsp;anticipating&nbsp;such an increase in&nbsp;Wishlists. Even our most optimistic guesses were lower. As for the feedback, it is a huge amount of data to work with, but&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;a great problem to have!&nbsp;We\u2019ve&nbsp;already made a scope of improvements and QoL changes to the EA build based on the demo feedback.&nbsp;It&nbsp;was&nbsp;very helpful&nbsp;to&nbsp;us,&nbsp;and&nbsp;we hope players will see all these changes and fine-tuning based&nbsp;on&nbsp;the&nbsp;opinions they shared with us.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014You even held a building contest that attracted&nbsp;nearly 200&nbsp;entries, and although&nbsp;Windrose&nbsp;hasn&#8217;t&nbsp;released&nbsp;yet, it already feels like there&#8217;s&nbsp;a very passionate&nbsp;fan&nbsp;community forming around it. What are your impressions of the&nbsp;player&nbsp;community so far?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>It\u2019s amazing! We feel like the game&nbsp;is&nbsp;attracting&nbsp;all kinds of passionate people. Some are looking for a pirate game to plunder some&nbsp;booty,&nbsp;others&nbsp;are pouring hundreds of hours into creative base building, and in Windrose,&nbsp;it all comes together in its own way. Our Discord server has recently passed the 50,000-member mark, while we had only 16,000 before Next Fest. We love the community that has formed around Windrose and will do our best to ship a good, entertaining game for them!&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<strong>\u2014Your&nbsp;project&nbsp;originally began development as the PvP-focused MMO Crosswind, before undergoing a major change in direction and being renamed&nbsp;to&nbsp;Windrose, which is quite an unusual development story. Why did you decide to shift into the survival genre despite it being such a competitive scene?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>We have always been in the survival&nbsp;genre,&nbsp;the main change was&nbsp;basically from&nbsp;MMO (with PvP) to a more traditional&nbsp;PvE&nbsp;adventure, including a change of business model from a live-service game to a traditional buy-to-play&nbsp;title.&nbsp;Nonetheless,&nbsp;it was&nbsp;a big&nbsp;change,&nbsp;and&nbsp;we&nbsp;essentially had&nbsp;to build a new game, but we believe it was the right call. Our&nbsp;initial&nbsp;ambition required&nbsp;much&nbsp;more resources, and in general, sustaining a free-to-play service game is a tremendously huge process we could not&nbsp;have&nbsp;handled&nbsp;properly.&nbsp;More importantly, it seems like&nbsp;the majority of&nbsp;players who got attracted&nbsp;to&nbsp;the game initially preferred to have it this way too \u2013&nbsp;a&nbsp;buy-to-play&nbsp;PvE&nbsp;adventure. We are&nbsp;very happy&nbsp;that the players\u2019 requests and our own vision overlapped here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1516\" height=\"849\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1516px) 100vw, 1516px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-004.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-64961\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-004.jpg 1516w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-004-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-004-768x430.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014What was the most challenging aspect of changing direction from an MMO? Conversely, were there any elements or remnants from&nbsp;the project\u2019s&nbsp;MMO era that you were able to reuse?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>It was challenging as a whole&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;we had to scrap most of the old stuff and&nbsp;start from scratch&nbsp;in all areas of the game, from under-the-hood tech stuff to the player facing content and mechanics. That said, we&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;have any sentimental feelings towards the&nbsp;previous&nbsp;concept of the game;&nbsp;it had to go.&nbsp;And now,&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;building something new, and hopefully, something that players will like more. That&nbsp;was the whole point of the change.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br><strong>\u2014Were there&nbsp;things you were only&nbsp;able to&nbsp;achieve&nbsp;because of the&nbsp;shift&nbsp;from a free-to-play to a full-priced&nbsp;business&nbsp;model?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>Well, sustaining a free-to-play live service would&nbsp;require&nbsp;a lot of resources (to produce the monetized&nbsp;content).&nbsp;These resources are now used to improve the core game without the need to worry about constant flow of monetization content.&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;not like one model is&nbsp;bad&nbsp;and the other is good \u2013 we simply believe what we have now fits our team AND our players much better.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014If you&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;mind us asking, did you sign a publishing deal with&nbsp;Pocketpair&nbsp;Publishing&nbsp;(for the Japanese market)&nbsp;before or after the release of the demo?&nbsp;Also,&nbsp;what was the deciding factor in choosing them?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>It was happening somewhere in parallel to the whole demo thing. The deciding factors were&nbsp;Pocketpair\u2019s&nbsp;expertise&nbsp;in the genre,&nbsp;especially&nbsp;in the region we want to service much better \u2013 Japan \u2013 and,&nbsp;what\u2019s&nbsp;very important&nbsp;to us,&nbsp;the&nbsp;somewhat similar&nbsp;spirit of the company.&nbsp;Pocketpair&nbsp;are also a passionate team who poured their sweat and souls into their prime game,&nbsp;Palworld. And they keep putting in a lot of effort to evolve it and to make their players happy. We respect that, and we feel we share a lot of common values.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1514\" height=\"856\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1514px) 100vw, 1514px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-005.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-64963\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-005.jpg 1514w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-005-380x215.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260409-64953-005-768x434.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014How popular has the demo been in Japan? If you are comfortable sharing, we would be&nbsp;very grateful&nbsp;if you could give us even&nbsp;a rough idea&nbsp;of the number of Japanese players.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>It\u2019s too early to share this data, but I can safely say that before&nbsp;Pocketpair&nbsp;joined in, we did not have much traction in Japan. Now, even after the first few weeks,&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;already seeing&nbsp;some increases in&nbsp;the&nbsp;demo player count in Japan,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Wishlist numbers&nbsp;have also&nbsp;started&nbsp;to reflect it. We are&nbsp;very happy&nbsp;to see this dynamic and hope that it will keep growing, and we look forward to welcoming more Japanese players in Windrose!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2014Finally, do you have a message for your fans and players in Japan?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Phil:<\/strong>\u00a0<br>Sure. Thank you for your support and passion for Windrose! We hope our partnership with Pocketpair will allow us to ship a better game for you, and we will do our best to live up to your expectations! See you\u00a0on\u00a0the high\u00a0seas!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Windrose is set to release in Early Access on April 14 for PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/3041230\/Windrose\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/store.epicgames.com\/en-US\/p\/windrose-831c86\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Epic Games Store<\/a>).&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We talk to the developers of open-world pirate survival game Windrose ahead of the title&#8217;s Early Access launch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-interviews"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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