Windbound Reviews
Windbound is a fun experience that breaks the survival game mold. The boat crafting and sailing are innovative features that were exciting to explore. Altough the positives were very strong, the quality of life issues made the experience tedious. Windbound accels in standing alone in a saturated genre, but doesn't shine through enough.
This is certainly one of 2020’s hidden gems, and survival enthusiasts will want to get stuck into this gruelling but beautiful experience.
Windbound's visual appeal is sure to lure in players expecting an entirely different experience. That said, I grew to love a game that I initially couldn't stand. It's beautiful, charming, captivating, and completely brutal without apology. One of my favorite games of the year so far.
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 a pleasant and not too challenging survival game, ideal for those who love the sea and want to explore incredible natural landscapes.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Windbound is a brief but enjoyable journey that merges Legend Of Zelda-style adventure with survival crafting.
Windbound offers some great ideas but never delivers on them. It's a gorgeous video game bogged down by tedious survival mechanics and the lack of freedom to explore the open 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.
There’s a sense of achievement that comes with beating a game like Windbound. It may not be as difficult as something like Bloodborne, but it feels like you’ve run a marathon.
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.
Windbound had a tonne of potential but the finished product is more Titanic or The Perfect Storm than a soothing day at sea.
Windbound throws a wide net of ideas in the hopes of catching something magical but a lack of depth leaves it high and dry
The focus in Windbound is definitely more on the survival side, with you keeping protagonist Kara alive in this rogue-like game. The game also takes the survival genre in a new direction by providing endless replay-ability options thanks to the procedural world, and dynamic because of the modular craft you can build. As each time you play the size of your boat changes depending on what resources you can find on the islands, these dictate the type of boat you can build. There is something quite satisfying about building your own boat and setting sail across the sea into unknown territory in Windbound. I’ve found the game to be very entertaining and a lot of fun to play.
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.
Windbound is a fun sailing game set in a world that’s different every time you play, but it’s a frustrating and punishing survival game at the same time. It’s highly likely to not be the game players expect it to be. Without any story or narrative to anchor it, the player is left adrift at sea without a raft.
For an indie title Windbound does a lot right. Graphics and sound feels just right and despite islands being a bit small there is still a lot to do on them. The non existing story and the tedious controls of your own ship are the biggest letdowns of the game.
Review in German | Read full review
I’d love to see this survive as a franchise -- all the elements are there, it just suffers identity crisis throughout and needs a bigger hook than “alone among a series of islands trying to find answers”. And unfortunately, that’s the game as is presented -- 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.
The central roguelite mechanic of the game is the weakest one and most frustrating - when you turn it off, Windbound is an enjoyable experience that's just held back by technical flaws. The story, however, partly makes up for that and Windbound has moments with the most remarking atmosphere.
Review in German | Read full review
Windbound is a delight. With a few UX issues and a bit of repetition holding it back from all-time-great status, this game is still a wonder to explore and discover. The sailing is fantastic, the island exploration is intriguing, and the sting of dying isn't so bad that it should scare away roguelike-haters. The world of Windbound is so well made that you may want to dip into it just to hang out for a while. Fun, exciting, and rewarding.
The barriers that Windbound puts up makes it a tough game to enjoy, at least initially. It will take time to appreciate what it brings to the survival genre with its clever boat-building and authored open world action, though these smart nuances often go hand-in-hand with tedious, sometimes frustrating stretches of playtime.