Windbound Reviews
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.
If you like survival games with a good atmosphere, you might want to give Windbound a try. Just be sure to temper your expectations. Anyone going into it thinking this will be a Breath of the Wild level survival title will be immensely disappointed.
The overall result is a game that doesn't quite achieve what it wants to be. The story isn't given as much airtime as it needs. Exploration is thwarted by the survival elements, and although the latter are the most satisfying of them all, clunky combat, the driving need to find food, and constant resource management means that there are better and more balanced survival titles out there.
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 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 is a survival game with rogue lite components. If the game have good ideas and design, the controls lacks of ergonomy, and the game is quite repetitive.
Review in French | Read full review
Windbound looks pretty, but lets you get frustrated and bored while playing.
Review in German | Read full review
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.
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 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.
Windbound throws a wide net of ideas in the hopes of catching something magical but a lack of depth leaves it high and dry
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.
Windbound is a good survival game, but it fails to deliver a real vibrant story and a good rhythm during exploration and crossing phases.
Review in Italian | Read full review
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.
Windbound loses its potential in getting bogged down by unbalanced survival mechanics that distract from it's best features.
"Windbound" is a beautiful journey that says a lot without needing to rely on spoken dialogue.
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.
This is a very chilled out game. It’s also one that I can see myself playing through multiple times. There’s so much to unpack, and for the price it really is a no-brainer. Don’t waste your time with other survival games, Windbound is all you need for years.
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.