Windbound Reviews
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!
Overall, though, Windbound’s visual and atmospheric aesthetic just can’t save the gameplay. I wanted to love Windbound as a fan of survival games and cel-shaded visuals, but the world was too empty and uninteresting to make the adventure worth it. The survival mechanics were almost unnecessary, making the trek through the world feel even more pointless and empty than it should have. Windbound is an attempt to combine narrative, survival, exploration and aesthetic into one package and fails on every count.
Whatever potential Windbound had went down with the ship.
Overall I can’t say I fully enjoyed my experience with Windbound, but I could have without the issues
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.
With just a single trailer, Windbound captivated the minds of many gamers. As more news came out about this indie title, anticipation grew larger and larger. Developed by 5 Lives Studios and published by the illustrious Deep Silver, the journey known as Windbound has finally seen its release on today’s consoles.
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.
While Windbound initially instills the awe and wonder of a brave new world to explore, the game quickly grows stale once the structure of it becomes readily apparent.
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.
Windbound should have been better. The potential and aesthetic are strong, but it is such an uninterestingly strict jaunt that I really couldn't find many redeeming features to make me want to play it any further than I have.
Windbound can be made to sound excellent in an elevator pitch, but the actual game is plagued by conflicting ideas, inconsistent design, and unrealized potential.
I sailed into Windbound with hope and excitement and unfortunately sailed away with disappointment. It’s not all bad, not by a long shot. But there were enough confusing design decisions and awkward control issues to put me off this game completely.
Windbound is an exploration game whose sense of exploration is painfully rigid.
On the tin, Windbound offers a fulfilling and exciting survival/adventure endeavor but when delved into, I was left with an empty and exhausting experience.
Windbound drops you in a world of wilderness and open water but fails to make exploration compelling.
Neither compelling as a survival simulation nor captivating as a story-based experience, Windbound is all at sea.
Windbound is a beautiful artistic accomplishment in terms of presentation, but fails to make good on its promise of bringing together an open-world single-player game and typical crafting-survival elements. Despite attempts to make it approachable for all, it is an ultimately frustrating affair that squanders its potential with the same rigid survival mechanics that we've seen in a lot of other games and that's a real shame.
Windbound is a game that sounds good on paper but in practice, it falls apart. It's a very interesting case study in design that takes inspiration from certain games yet doesn't quite understand what made them fun in the first place.
Windbound had a tonne of potential but the finished product is more Titanic or The Perfect Storm than a soothing day at sea.
Windbound looks pretty, but lets you get frustrated and bored while playing.
Review in German | Read full review