Aside from Crimson Desert, one of the hottest games (on PC, anyway) is the pirate sandbox MMO Windrose, which is quickly sailing up the Steam charts with over 100,000 players swashbuckling three days after launch.
According to the player tracker SteamDB, Windrose has a concurrent player count of 102,999 players. That puts it at the No. 11 spot on the Most Played Games list, beating out the life sim Stardew Valley (~100,000) but trailing behind the action-adventure RPG Crimson Desert (~113,000). It’s nowhere near the likes of Counter Strike 2 (~1.4 million) or Slay the Spire 2 (~286,000); however, for a game that hit early access on April 14, reaching an all-time peak of 113,930 and not just maintaining that but almost cresting that is an impressive feat to behold.
It makes sense, in a way. With over 4,500 reviews that amount to a “very positive” rating on Steam, Windrose harkens back to a game like Risen–if it were actually good–and proves gamers are desperate for more pirate adventures. Who doesn’t like pillaging and plundering? And with the reports that the Black Flag remake, officially titled Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced, is launching on July 9, it appears now’s the time for pirates to dominate just as ninja and samurai have.
Actually, Black Flag was an inspiration for Windrose. According to producer Phil, AKA Yar_maste, developer Kraken Express called Ubisoft’s famed 2013 pirate sim the “best pirate game of all time.” Looking at Black Flag, Phil said that the pirate niche is “still underserved today” and hopes that Windrose sings that sea shanty.
While Windrose may be catching that wind in its sails, it’s currently a PC-only title. Kraken Express has expressed interest in bringing the game to consoles, but the team told GameSpot in a statement on April 14 that there are no “updates about Windrose on consoles.” That doesn’t mean the team isn’t enthusiastic about an eventual console release, but that it isn’t imminent or immediate and, instead, the priority is the 1.0 launch.