The pirate game Windrose is out now in early access for PC, and one of its producers has now discussed a number of topics about it, including inspiration sources and why it dropped a free-to-play model.
Kraken Express producer Phil, AKA Yar_maste, told Automaton that the consensus at the studio is that Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is the “best pirate game of all time.” Unsurprisingly, Black Flag was an inspiration for Windrose, Phil said, along with games like Valheim and Enshrouded.
“It’s a combination of what we wanted to create and what we thought the players would want to play. We indeed love the pirate theme, and believe this niche is still underserved today,” Phil said.
As it happens, Ubisoft is rumored to officially announce a remake or remaster of Black Flag on April 16 under the title Resynced, so it may indeed be a busy week for pirate games.
Windrose began as a free-to-play MMO called Crosswind before the studio made a “big change” that resulted in the team needing to “build a new game.” Shifting from an MMO to a more survival/adventure kind of experience, along with dropping the free model in favor of a paid release, ended up being the path Kraken Express thought was best.
“Our initial ambition required much more resources, and in general, sustaining a free-to-play service game is a tremendously huge process we could not have handled properly,” Phil said. “More importantly, it seems like the majority of players who got attracted to the game initially preferred to have it this way too: A buy-to-play PvE adventure. We are very happy that the players’ requests and our own vision overlapped here.”
Changing things up so drastically was “challenging,” Phil admitted, as it involved scrapping “most of the old stuff” and beginning again “from scratch in all areas of the game,” including under-the-hood technical features and player-facing content and systems.
“That said, we don’t have any sentimental feelings towards the previous concept of the game; it had to go,” Phil explained.
As for ditching the free-to-play model, Phil said sustaining a live-service free-to-play game would have required the team to release more and more content to keep players engaged–and spending money.
“These resources are now used to improve the core game without the need to worry about constant flow of monetization content. It’s not like one model is bad and the other is good–we simply believe what we have now fits our team AND our players much better,” he said.
Windrose, which is published by Kraken Express and Palworld studio Pocketpair, is available now on Steam for $30, but you can get it for 10% off through April 21.
