Windrose, out now on PC, is an open-world survival RPG all about being a pirate, having a big ship, and blasting away other boats. (You’ll also fight for loot and, of course, enjoy the classic pirate cliche of running away from wild hogs that will kill you in seconds.) Windrose, which is one of the biggest games on Steam right now, can be a hard and sometimes obtuse game, so here are 15 tips and tricks to help you as you begin your journey across the open seas, either alone or with some friends.
Always carry some grass, rocks, and wood
Living the pirate life in Windrose, especially early on, is less about swashbuckling adventures on the open seas and more about surviving dark, dangerous islands filled with feral wild hogs who will gut you in seconds. To help you survive, keep wood, rocks, and plant fibers with you at all times. You don’t need to fill your inventory, but a few bits of each can come in handy when landing on a strange new island. You’ll be able to quickly start fires, build torches, erect walls, and most importantly: make a tent.
Build tents when exploring new islands or before fights
Perhaps the most important tip to pull from this entire post is that tents are cheap and fast to build and let you respawn after death. The game explains this, sure, but keep in mind you can build tents basically anywhere in the open world. So before you rush headlong into a temple or enemy camp, pop a tent down and set it as your respawn point. That way, if you die, you spawn just a few feet away and not all the way back on the last island you explored or the beach where you landed earlier. This is very handy as combat can be a pain in the ass in Windrose. Speaking of…
Lower some sliders to have more fun
If you leave Windrose on its default normal difficulty settings and hop into a world, you’ll quickly discover that boars in this universe will mess you up. In fact, all enemies can kill you quickly. Now, you can try to mitigate this by upgrading your gear, being very careful during fights, and carrying a shit-ton of healing items on you at all times.
Or, you can just lower your game session’s sliders before starting. I lowered how much damage enemies give and their max health by about 25 percent. That change was enough to make the combat still tricky, but not quite as Dark Souls-y. Of course, if you prefer harder combat, keep the sliders where they are. But if you and your pals are tired of getting two-shotted by boars, even after leveling up, drop the sliders a bit and have a good time. I won’t tell anyone. And neither will all the people on the game’s subreddit who suggest the same thing.
Make sure to carry food with you
While out and about doing pirate stuff, you don’t want to be hungry. It’ll lower your max health. So make sure you carry some food with you at all times. Early on, crabs, bananas, and coconuts provide some useful recipes.
Parry attacks and lock on to enemies
Melee combat in Windrose is a lot easier if you lock onto enemies and parry attacks. Neither of these mechanics is very well explained, however. Parrying doesn’t use stamina and can stun enemies, offering a nice moment to attack. To parry, just tap block right as an attack is about to land. The timing is pretty generous, from what I can tell. On a controller, you can lock onto a target by clicking the right stick.
Use bonfires to heal
In Windrose, bonfires are what turn a random tent into a full-on campsite where you can even have your crew hang out. Even better, bonfires can heal you over time and help your stamina regenerate faster. So whenever you decide to call a spot home for an extended amount of time, pop down a bonfire.
Complete missions and clear points of interest to level up
You don’t level up by killing stuff in Windrose. Instead, you gain XP and level up by clearing points of interest around the map and completing quests. The points of interest are only considered clear once you’ve completed the objectives listed. This often requires finding a few chests hidden around the immediate area. Once you’ve cleared a location, it’ll be marked with a checkmark. Most islands have at least a few POIs to investigate, and they offer a fast way to gain some XP.
Increase your vitality stat ASAP
When you do level up, I recommend adding a few points to your max health by upgrading your vitality stat. Don’t focus exclusively on this stat, as the other attributes are useful too, but early on, having more health will help you fend off all those damn wild hogs.
You can fast-travel on your boat
After you get a boat and start exploring the map, you’ll encounter fast-travel points at certain towns and faction HQs. You can fast-travel to any of these places while commanding your boat or ship. Just open the map while at the wheel, select the fast-travel point, and a few seconds later you’ll be teleported to the spot.
Oh, and build more fast-travel spots
It’s a good idea to build a fast-travel bell at your main home base. You’ll get a free fast-travel bell early on in the game. After that, you’ll need to craft more of them using a workbench, copper, and rope. You can have up to 10 of them on the map at any given time, so use these to build out a transportation network to help fill in the gaps between towns and bases. Just keep in mind that fast-travel bells must be built by the ocean.
Build a wharf to upgrade and customize your vessel
Another thing that needs to be built by the water is a wharf. These let you customize, repair, and upgrade your ship or even build a whole new vessel, assuming you have the materials to do so.
Don’t board enemy ships right away
As you start to sail the high seas, you’ll quickly encounter enemy ships. These can be attacked and either sunk or boarded. Boarding grants you better rewards, but is riskier as you might have to face off against three or four enemy pirates. So don’t just hop right in. Instead, assuming you have the bullets and gunpowder, stay on your ship and pelt the enemies with gunfire. Weakening a few or even taking some out can help your crew and give you a better chance of successfully raiding the enemy ship.
When playing co-op, bring multiple ships
While riding on your buddy’s cool pirate ship and manning the guns is fun, you’re going to want to have multiple boats if possible. Having more than one ship helps you take on groups of enemies and means no one person is getting targeted by every cannon. Just make sure you split the loot fairly, of course.
When marking a spot on the map, select the off mini-map option
Here’s a tiny detail that I didn’t know about until I’d spent quite a bit of time with the game. When you mark a spot on the map, there’s a check box that appears at the bottom of the pop-up box. This asks if you want this mark to appear even if it’s not on the mini-map. Check that, and you’ll be able to mark faraway places and see the spot on the edge of your minimap, making navigation much easier.
To change sea shanties, stop and start your crew’s singing
Tired of the song your crew is singing? Just hold the button that starts them singing, which will stop them, and then hold it again to start them back up, and they’ll be singing a new song. Soon enough, you’ll get them singing “What do you do with a drunken sailor?! What do you do with a drunken sailor?!” or whatever song you so desire.
