Has *Windrise Journey* entered EA—can this pirate ship hold its own?

Promising, but the follow-up frame generation still needs to be seen. The pirate survival track isn’t exactly new; the real challenge is blending sailing, melee combat, building, and multiplayer cooperation into one complete combo. Voyage of the Wind has now officially entered Early Access, and at least judging from the public information, both its content volume and presentation are far beyond a mere test run. It was announced by Kraken Express 北海巨妖号快船, formerly the Windrose Crew team, on April 14, 2026, with Steam as the first platform.

First, the price—this will decide whether many players hop aboard right away. The standard edition is 98 yuan, and the Supporter Pack is 136 yuan, which adds a wallpaper collection and the official soundtrack. There’s also a 10% launch discount for the first week. For an Early Access game, this pricing isn’t reckless, and at least it doesn’t drag out the wind-up too much. On top of that, it has already climbed to No. 6 on the Steam wishlist chart, and its previous Next Fest demo reached nearly 900,000 players, so the hype here is clearly no small affair.

Now for the core gameplay: this game clearly wants to be a “great pirate sandbox.” You can explore solo or team up with as many as 8 players, surviving while advancing a revenge storyline aimed squarely at the legendary pirate “Blackbeard.” The map features three major ecological regions, and while the world is procedurally generated, it also packs in nearly 100 handcrafted points of interest, including dungeons, ancient temples, shipwreck ruins, and abandoned camps. This approach basically forces randomness and level design texture together, and whether it works will depend on whether the generation logic ends up disrupting the rhythm of exploration.

The combat is the part I care about most. The developers mention Soulslike-style melee combat, with weapons such as cutlasses, war hammers, and firearms to take on epic bosses, while skills, talents, and gear let you build different playstyles. There’s nothing wrong with that design direction; the key is whether hit feedback, dodge timing, and synchronization quality in multiplayer hold up, otherwise it could easily turn into “all style, no substance” action. Still, it does make the transition between land, ships, exploration, building, and combat seamless, and if they pull that off smoothly, the experience could feel like a combo string that never drops, with immersion going up a whole tier.

The naval combat system, meanwhile, is the real highlight of this EA release. The Early Access version adds three new ship types, including the brig, the brigantine, and the galleon, and it also introduces a multiplayer cooperative warship control system, allowing crew members to jointly manage weapon systems and coordinate in battle. Add in naval combat, boarding actions, faction reputation, trading, farming, fishing, outpost building, and NPC recruitment, and this gameplay package really does spread wide. Dozens of hours of content is solid enough; at the very least, the first round of play shouldn’t feel empty.

One last thing: what’s the better way to buy in? My advice is straightforward: if you like multiplayer survival games and can pull together a regular squad, grab the standard edition during the 10% launch discount and test the feel first. If you’re already into pirate themes and also want the music and wallpapers, then consider the Supporter Pack. On the other hand, if you’re especially sensitive to action feel and frame-rate stability, and you don’t like touching EA versions, then it’s better to wait and see how the first wave of reviews and multiplayer feedback turns out. As it stands, Voyage of the Wind has already laid out a solid content framework, like a fierce opening mid-string. Whether it can chain that into a full sequence depends on the developers’ update cadence and optimization chops.