Windbound

Neither compelling as a survival simulation nor captivating as a story-based experience, Windbound is all at sea.

Windbound drops you in a world of wilderness and open water but fails to make exploration compelling.

From a distance, Windbound is a gorgeous oceanic adventure with a fun sailing system that isn't afraid to push back, but up close, the cracks start to show. The game makes a great first impression that ultimately wears thin by the time you've mastered its repetitive resource-gathering roguelike loop.

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.

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.

Windbound is a fine survival game, if you want to build very specific kinds of ships and kill indigenous wildlife for twenty hours.

Windbound is a decently fun game. Through the story didn't pull me in, the visuals and upgrading the ship were what kept me wanting to play more. If you're a fan of Windwaker, Windbound may not satisfy your craving with the survival pieces added in. But if you're looking for a different survival game, or if the premise of Windbound sounds like it will float your boat? Grab it!

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.

Windbound is fine for a short pleasure cruise, but you're unlikely to want to complete the full voyage.