Foreword
Hello lovelies! It's time for another Random Review, cause this one deserves it!
This review was written on 4/27/2026, About a week and a half-2 weeks into it's Early Access period!

--{Graphics}---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe

---{Gameplay}---
☑ Addictive like heroin
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Just don‘t

---{Audio}---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape

---{Audience}---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Average Solitaire Players

---{PC Requirements}---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☑ Rich boiiiiii
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{Difficulity}---
☐ Just press ‚A‘
☐ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☑ Survival Game level Grinding!
☐ You‘ll need a second life for grinding

---{Story}---
☐ If you want story, then go read a book.
☐ Text or Audio floating around
☐ Average depends an DLC
☑ Good
☐ Story-Based
☐ It‘ll replace your life

---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of tea
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ Very Long!
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{Price}---
☐ There is no „price“
☑ Worth the price, with or without sale
☐ Worth it on Sale
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{Bugs}---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs(EAG acceptable levels)
☐ Can get annoying
☐ Assassin‘s Creed: Unity
☐ Get a bug spray. Or more. A lot more. Or maybe a flamethrower. Or a nuke.


Final Score: 8/10
(I purposefully deducted score due to the game being EAG! 1/10 for bugs, 1/10 for EAG. If the game gets most or all bugs fixed, and is much much better when EAG ends and full release happens? I'll update the score. The only reason why it's not 10/10, is because with EAG? There's room for improvement.)


Final word:
So...Windrose! What is there to say?
How about...The best Pirate Game released since Black Flag first set sail...And it's only in Early Access. Leaps and bounds better than what Sea of Thieves could've ever hoped to be.

No, really. The glowing recommendations? The exceptionally positive feedback? The constant praises and minimal disdain? It's all for a very good reason.
Windrose just did it right. It's not without it's flaws, but that is to be expect this early on in EAG stages. But even with it being this premature, it's already this good? The potential is staggering, and it is poised right now to topple Assassin's Creed: Black Flag as the #1 best Pirate Game available right now.

The game has it all; combat, crafting, cosmetic allure, naval combat, lots of ships, gear improvement, procedurally generated maps, story, reputation grind, farming. The list just goes on and on...AND THIS IS AN EARLY ACCESS GAME? Ridiculous.

The sound in this game is quite possibly one of the best I've ever heard. All of the audio is just clean, crisp and wonderful. The shanty singing while on your ship is phenomenal and just sets the immersion SO well! The cannons firing pounds in your ears and the rain pattering makes you nostalgic for a good storm to sit and look at. It's just done so remarkably well!
The graphics are nothing to sneeze at! Usually this early on there are seams/uneven clipping when crafting individual walls for a building, but these are FLAWLESS, and the possibilities for crafting, ENDLESS. Even now there are so so SO many crafting designs to rep grind for and unlock.

I could honestly keep going. I havn't even talked about the interesting story, the fantastic art, the way you collect materials, the way crafting station 'levels' are done. The level system and complex talent trees! The gear and the just fantastically well designed outfits....And the fact it has TONS of multiplayer options, where it recommends 4 players, but you can honestly just keep adding slots and have a huge game with lots of players. It gives you those endorphin hits in just the right way, it's so satisfying!

Now...For the VANISHINGLY tiny bad:

There are bugs. Of course there are. It's in EAG! Bugs are not just likely, they're expected! Thing is, there were bugs I saw day 1...1 week later, the bug is hotfixed. The devs are pulling coffee fueled all nighters right now to get the game looking and feeling even better than it did just hours before.

And yes, the optimization needs some work. Specifically lighting sources are VERY demanding. My specs are not top of the top of the line, but it's also no slouch! With a considerably overclocked 3080 and playing at 1440p with every graphics setting set to Epic(maximum), 1 light source like a wall torch doesn't do much, but after building a whole base and layering it in lighting so you can see well enough, had my system chugging at 30-45 FPS at night time. I had to turn lighting quality down to High and that brought me past 50 FPS again.

There's a pretty heavy stutter/freeze hang in the game when playing multiplayer and someone Fast Travels to Tortuga, specifically. The hang can last 2-10+ seconds and is rather annoying if you're doing something sensitive, like fighting or naval combat. This seems to be the ONLY case of this freeze, however. Connection issues to the server etc. thus far has been perfect. No crashes of any kind.

But, just like the rest of the problems, I have very little doubt in my mind that these problems will get fixed!

Do I recommend the game? Absolutely! It's great fun, FANTASTIC with friends, incredibly satisfying and an absolute treasure worth digging out of the sand and taking for yourself!
So grab your cutlass, your pistol and your best Tricone! Weigh anchor and set sail! Adventure, treasure and a life on the raging sea, awaits!