Windbound

Windbound is a fantastic adventure wrapped in a questionable package. I remember distinctly being super excited for this game from the trailers. I wanted it to be a Zelda-style adventure in the absence of titles like it recently. The mixture of mystique and survival though just doesn’t work well here. The things that make each of these genres interesting are not combined effectively most of the time. What I wanted to do in discovering Windbound’s mysteries felt at odds with its base mechanics. I wanted to love this title a lot more than I ended up doing.

Windbound starts off promisingly, but after a few hours it already seems to have shown everything it has to offer and from there we will only be hooked on solving its narrative mystery based on repeatability of objectives.

Despite its genuinely breathtaking scenery and interesting castaway premise, Windbound is ultimately a let down. Neither compelling as a survival simulation nor captivating as a story-based experience, Windbound is fundamentally all at sea and should be given a wide berth.

Windbound is a story based survival game set across five procedurally generated worlds. It features a cool boat building mechanic and a strong sense of discovery, but some of its systems and mechanics get in the way and can strip the fun away.

If the gods of random generation line everything up in your favour, Windbound could be a truly captivating adventure. It’s unlikely to happen that way though, and sadly its many frustrations outweigh the beautiful game it could have been.

A solitary experience, directionless and without contextual form. Gorgeous, yes, and presented as an ambitious and familiar package with an equally resonant soundtrack, but oddly empty.

Windbound is a tough and mean spirited survival adventure. The concept is clever in its simplicity and it makes the game more difficult in other ways from the normal methods. The game is quite basic in its design but makes up for it in its challenge. I would have enjoyed the challenge more if the combat was handled a little better, the camera angles weren’t such a nuisance and the sailing wasn’t so slow and awkward. The pace can feel very slow at first but if you commit enough time to it you can speed things up as you progress and learn to balance survival better.

While Windbound failed to shake my sails, being too repetitive and pressured, it should appeal to survivalists. Respect must be afforded to the interesting sailing mechanics, which elevates the exploration.