![]() In them, you are presented with ancient glyphs that tell the story of the people who once inhabited this archipelago and then must make chase across a fast-paced wave of obstacles. Sailing does feel at it’s best when you’re being propelled through the encounters that occur between each portal. But the wind is so inconsistent that there’ll be times where you ship will be stuck, and no movement or tightening of the sail will get things going again. Drawing obvious inspiration from games like The Wind Waker and Oceanhorn, the direction of the wind provides a good indication of where to pitch your sail to get a smooth motion going. Sailing is your primary mode of transportation and feels very inconsistent. I understand that’s kind of the whole point of games that utilise survival mechanics, but it just seems so at odds at the otherwise pleasant and tranquil atmosphere of the game. But the survival component of the game stops you from doing it at your own leisure, instead hurriedly pushing you from island to island in desperate search of food and nourishment. ![]() It’s a very simplistic gameplay loop that feels like it was shoehorned into the game after the crafting and survival mechanics were – as not only is it simple, but it’s also repetitive.īut I did appreciate that Windbound has zero waypoints, hence encouraging you to explore. The crux of the adventure has you navigating an area, looking for three beacons, before activating a portal to move to the next one. I persisted, though, because I was confident that the other half of this concept, the “open-world adventure,” half would see an eventual pay-off. I fully acknowledge that given how the procedurally generated world is handled, that another player might have a much more positive experience, but Windbound kept throwing curveballs at me that I was fed up with after several hours. Subsequently, dying in the game destroys the boat you might’ve spent hours building, though your inventory is retained when playing in “Story” mode. If Kara is hungry, she won’t become less efficient, she literally loses health until she dies. This feeling of frustration quickly becomes demotivating as the systems begin to turn on you in literal minutes. Couple this with a procedurally generated world – where the randomly generated islands you come across might not even have food on them, and Windbound gets frustrating fast. Instead, I found myself continually being frustrated by how limiting the survival aspects of the game were.Įven playing on the “Story” mode, where survival aspects are toned down, the game was still nagging me, making sure Kara remains satiated. I was so keen to jump into this world, go sailing, and explore what these mysterious islands had to offer. And that’s really what Windbound is.īut the biggest problem here is that Windbound doesn’t feel like an open-world adventure despite how inviting it was. The cynical Zelda fan in me finds it hard to not compare this whole experience to The Wind Waker, albeit with Breath of the Wild “survival” sensibilities. The big twist here is that you’re on a series of islands, so a lot of the travelling you’ll be doing is by boat, which you also build up. With each new area, you enter having new components that can then be used to build up your equipment and weapons to improve yourself. The general gameplay loop is much like you’d expect too. It retains all the hallmarks of this type of game that you’d expect – lots of collected materials, heaps of gear to create, and a hunger system that is continually on your shoulder. Windbound is, at its core, a crafting-survival game. That is, the story takes a back seat to the action and really doesn’t serve as a motivating backdrop to the pillaging and crafting. ![]() Trying to riff off the minimalistic approach of Breath of the Wild while doubling down on all the aspects of that game you probably didn’t like. ![]() I say that because Windbound attempts to “own the intersection” between survival-crafting games and open-world adventure ones, but it ultimately feels like more of the former rather than the latter. However, it does feel like a simplistic way to provide context to what is essentially a very lovely looking crafting sandbox. It’s a very “show don’t tell” style of storytelling very much drawing inspirations from games like Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus. With nothing following the tumultuous event, Kara must use raw materials to build herself a new boat and further explore the islands and their mysterious first inhabitants. Windbound sees you take the role of Kara, a young woman left stranded on a group of islands following a vicious storm. ![]()
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