Windbound Reviews
GOOD - Windbound attempts to combine Zelda-like visuals and gameplay with the survival genre of gaming that has become so popular over the past decade. For the most part it works, but there are some small issues like long loading, pop-in graphics, and less than ideal UI that hold it back from greatness. Still, there’s a lot of fun to discover here!
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.
So overall, Windbound is a lighter survival experience that I would recommend if you’re looking for a more relaxing experience. Regardless of the modes, there’s never anything that will outright destroy your rafts or kill you because you landed on its island. Taken at your own pace, this is perfect for those quiet Sunday afternoons where you have nothing planned and simply want to listen to the sounds of the waves or some light ambient music.
Neither compelling as a survival simulation nor captivating as a story-based experience, Windbound is all at sea.
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.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Windbound is most certainly not the Zelda-lite adventure that you may have expected it to be, but it still manages to pull off an impressively well-made survival experience that's fun to roam around in for a few hours. The open-ended progression, pleasing art style, and relaxing pace make this one an easy recommendation for fans of the survival genre, though it's held back from greatness due to issues with repetition. Still, it's tough to go wrong with what's on offer here; you might want to give this one a look.
Windbound is a fantastic adventure wrapped in a questionable package.
Windbound has several interesting ideas and is very nice to look at and listen to, but unfortunately the experience suffers from some flaws – for example, the procedural generation doesn't make for particularly interesting level design. But above everything else, it lacks rhythm.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Windbound is a serviceable survival game that offers a unique sailing experience to keep hardcore fans of the genre interested. But with simplistic and bland-feeling combat and an experience that doesn't engage with its narrative (despite promising to), Windbound isn't recommended at full price.
Earlier in August, another boat-faring game by the name of Spiritfarer was also released, and which I also reviewed, and if you are going to get one game about boats and oceans this month, get Spiritfarer. In fact, I would have a difficult time recommending Windbound over almost any game, and for almost any reason. In most regards, Windbound struggles to feel like a game at all, instead playing like a demo for a far-from-release Kickstarter project, or the alpha build of a new engine, where game mechanics have only been implemented for testing purposes. This isn't an early access project, but is a full release with an audacious asking price of $29.99 for an adventure that, according to Steam metrics, took me all of 4.3 hours to breeze through. The best part is that it only took me less than five hours to see the ending credits. Oh well, at least Tony Hawk comes out this week. DON'T LET ME DOWN, TONY!
There’s a lot to learn from Nintendo’s initial offerings, and Brisbane based indie studio may have a bright future but much like the title’s “Survival” mode, Windbound sets sail into tumultuous tides that may have washed them ashore, and back to the drawing board.
Unfortuntely, if you’re looking for a great survival roguelike to put your time into, then you’re probably better off setting sail in more abundant seas.
Windbound wants to offer a deep story backed up by rewarding exploration, crafting and survival in a beautiful open world. However, it only really lands the beautiful open world part of this, with it getting close to the line with the rewarding exploration and crafting aspects. The problem is that for all it wants to offer, Windbound is just too shallow and repetitive and offers no real replay value.
In the end, after figuring out every Chapter was essentially second verse, same as the first, I stopped exploring. I stopped trying to get better gear. All I needed was enough food to keep me alive as I sail from one island to the next, climbing towers, activating beacons, rinse, and repeat.
Overall I can’t say I fully enjoyed my experience with Windbound, but I could have without the issues
Windbound seeks to move beyond the “emergent story through gameplay” standard among survival games, and while it succeeds somewhat, I think it still has some room to grow. There are also some balance issues with some of the systems that the developers have talked about tuning post-launch, so it is entirely possible that Windbound will grow into something that feels overall really polished, but at present it just isn’t quite hitting all the right notes for me. There’s a lot to like about Windbound, and maybe with a little more time and care, there will be a lot to love. For now, it’s a strong concept with some really well implemented mechanics that just leaves me wanting for the better, more fleshed out version of this same thing. In the meantime though, it is a joyful, bright game that has enough going for it that you may want to keep dipping your toes back in. Just know that the waters may be a tad more shallow than they appear.
Windbound looked to be a great many things, but it turned out to be a standard survival-roguelike crossover with some promising areas that never reached their full potential. An overly cruel death mechanic and repeating vistas are what ultimately drag down an otherwise solid and partially fun survival game. With the right expectations, Windbound is a solid offering that doesn't stray too far from its survival core.
More enticing systemically than it is narratively, Windbound nevertheless succeeds as a sojourner's adventure of striving for survival and greater understanding.
This game was certainly a unique experience. I enjoyed its simplicity, struggled with its challenges, and had fun in the process. The visuals were pleasing, accompanied by clean image quality, and the music was fitting and a tad charming in the process. Despite my frustrations with the moments of platforming here and there and the eventual repetitiveness of the gameplay loop, if I were to ever hunker for a survivalist’s challenge again, I would definitely come back to Windbound.
