#7 Windbound (PC - 2020) 4/5 (Playtime: 50 hours)
J and cane, and *maybe* argyle?, I remember you guys playing this one, right? I don't think any of you liked it this much though.
The solitary and quiet adventure is a gaming motif that is particularly appealing to me. I've always preferred silent protagonists and narratives that are delivered via world-building and subtlety rather than direct and verbose exposition. Not to impugn all narrative-heavy games necessarily, but I especially enjoy when games are, first and foremost, interested in letting the player play and learn through experience and optional discovery, both how the world works and any aspects of the story, instead of having characters prattle on endlessly in what more-often-than-not is delivered via poor voice work and awkward, unfocused, and self-contradictory storytelling. I want my adventure to be my OWN. I want my experience to BE the story if I have my druthers, and if there are any narrative elements outside those naturally and dynamically emergent tales, I prefer it if they are optional and/or delivered through gameplay and my own discoveries. (Think Souls, Metroid Prime, etc.) To the point, I like minimalism when it comes to narrative, even if there are most certainly exceptions.
Enter Windbound, an open-world sailing game where you adventure across five procedurally generated worlds, making your way from island to island as you seek to unravel a mystery and, perhaps, find your way home. The game begins with the main character, Kara, navigating some harsh sea conditions with what appears to be her clan, all on similar vessels, rafts with red sails. After being tossed overboard and floating in the abyss for a while, she finds herself in some otherworld void with a light before her. After passing through this illuminated disc, she finds herself prone on the sand, having washed up on the beach. Upon regaining her faculties and rising from her slumber, she looks around to discover herself upon an island. From this point, most everything is under player control. There are a variety of tutorial hints offered as you begin to walk around and discover your surroundings, and these little pointers are given periodically throughout, as circumstance necessitates. But it's mostly hands-off. So, what to do?
Well, when approaching various natural resources on this initial isle, you'll find the option to collect myriad things like sticks, grass, rocks, and eventually all manner of potentially useful materials that can be used in a crafting menu to aid in your survival and propel you towards uncovering just what has happened to isolate you from your tribe. The crux of Windbound's experience is in venturing forth upon the open waters to find new islands and earn progress into the next chapter. This is done by activating three towers, in various ways, found amidst all the islands in each chapter. Once you've found all three towers, you proceed to a fourth location where you ascend some stairs and unlock three pillars corresponding to each activated tower, which releases a staircase to the top of the area. In this final area, you meet a boss (in every chapter but the first), and if you win, you find yourself back in a void area similar to the one in which you began and must navigate your watercraft along a lengthy channel until you reach a pedestal that will allow you to purchase “blessings” before going through another disc of light and into the next chapter. These blessings are bought via “sea shards” that you collect in different ways in each chapter, including acquiring some for activating each tower. These blessings are permanent upgrades, but they are limited by the number of slots you have available. You only start with a single slot, but some of the blessings you can purchase are for additional slots, allowing you to hold more upgrades. When I finished, I had four slots, which meant I could carry four single-slot blessings, two two-slot blessings, or any combination to fill out the available number I'd acquired. (I think four is the max.) These blessings are a real difference maker, with some granting you permanent and unbreakable weapons, the ability to lose less stamina when swimming, an option to be saved once upon death, and the ability to sneak and be invisible at the cost of stamina loss while doing so, just to name a few. There are a nice variety of potential options, and the fact that they're limited but permanent upgrades (within the run you're on) makes for a nice element of strategy as you consider what you might best use upon entering a new chapter or starting over upon death. And I say "starting over" because Windbound has a rogue-ish aspect to its structure, at least on the difficulty I played - Survivalist. In this mode, if you die in ANY chapter, you are sent back to the beginning of chapter one, losing everything but the permanent blessing slots you've purchased, and will then have to choose your blessings again upon restarting from square one.
There is also combat where you encounter the wild fauna on various islands. It functions much like many other adventure games where you have a lock on target for what you're fighting as well as a dodge roll, counter attacks and so on. The combat was functional, if mechanically unrefined. That is to say, it worked, but I was never really excited by these confrontations, other than in the sense of fear that if I lost, I'd have to start the game all over. That tension made things engaging by virtue of the stakes, and you could certainly be overwhelmed with opposition at times, making running away the best option. And even single creatures could end your run reasonably quickly if you got yourself in trouble. But again, this aspect of the game was more effective due to the roguelike structure of the game than it was due to any mechanical excellence. Again, functional but not great on its own. You also must manage your stamina in these conflicts because running out will make your attacks ineffectual or impossible, so there was a bit of a flow and rhythm to things where you needed to give attention to your status as you attacked, retreated, and danced around foes.
Hunger was also a persistent factor throughout, and you had to constantly keep an eye on this level as well, or you'd starve. Many creatures would yield meat upon their demise, whether of the land, sea, or air varieties. There were also edible fungi and other flora that had various effects, especially when mixed into potions with the right recipes. It could be problematic to keep your food stores sufficient due to the rate of spoilage. But there is also a special food bag that you can craft to reduce that rate, but hunger is always something on your mind as you wander, and you'll find yourself hoping the next island has some resources that can be consumed for continued sustenance. So, everything, once assembled from its parts, is essentially a survival, roguelike exploration game.
But the real star of the show and the reason to play, in my opinion, is the wonderful sailing. Early in the game, you'll only be able to craft a grass canoe, which you can row from island to island. It's a slow means of travel, and you'll want to upgrade this sooner rather than later. But you can eventually make bamboo canoes and rafts, simple wooden craft, and larger vessels, all of which can be fitted with a mast and sails of various kinds in order to catch the wind and propel yourself over the sea. The wind itself is a crucial character in Windbound as well. It won't always be at your back, and sometimes it may be directly against you. Life is good when your sails are full and the wind is powerfully backing your desired course, but even in less than optimal conditions, you can tighten your sails (as well as raising or lowering them to catch more or less wind) and sort of slalom against the wind with those stiff sails as you make your way in a less direct, criss-crossing fashion. It does take a bit of experience to figure out the best way to sail your craft, and it took me a while to get the hang of it. I've read many that complained about this aspect, but for me it offered a wonderfully disempowering sensation as I felt not only at the mercy of the fickle winds but also relatively helpless against the sea herself, as I found myself tossed about when the winds were heavy, the waves high, and the waters choppy. This sense of disempowerment really facilitated the sense of adventure and the feeling of being on a grand and uncertain quest. I was captivated by my helplessness and always felt great relief when I'd made it to a new destination, often in low visibility due to heavy rains, night travel, or cloudy skies, not to mention the potential threats within the seas, like “crabsters” that would try to leap on your craft and damage it until you killed them, stinging jellyfish, coral reefs that can (and did once in my case) utterly rip your boat apart and leave you stranded in the water, as well as a twist on a particular sound effect that any child of the 70s will recognize as being inspired by a particular ocean-faring fiction of that era. You'll want to offer a wide berth when you hear that ominous sound, trust me. But the sense of sailing over the waves was both wonderfully peaceful and incredibly stressful at times, but always convincing in its feel. It was such a joyous sensation to move about these vast open spaces in your little watercraft, and though the journeys between islands WERE sometimes lengthy, it also accentuated the sense of a difficult and worthy quest that suggested it was going to test your mettle. I will say that I eventually came upon what I felt to be the BEST craft configuration. After experimenting for some time and learning by experience, I thought the bamboo canoe with spikes and a mast and sail offered the best compromise of durability and maneuverability. Some of the larger craft could end up feeling lumbering and awkward as you tried to weave in and out of obstacles and navigate the turbulent waves themselves. But the strongest available canoe with sails was quick and nimble, and utilizing the winds was far easier in any set of conditions due to the lighter weight of the vessel in comparison to some larger rafts. I, rather unobservantly, didn't notice for a long time that you could attach a mast and sail to the canoes, and it cost me a bunch of extra time in terms of simple navigation, but once I pulled my head out and realized, it made all the difference, and traversal was (relatively) snappy and agile - just a joy in comparison to other options, in my opinion. I will also make a recommendation. The game has a soft soundtrack that plays over your travels. It's mostly inoffensive, but when I decided to turn off the music altogether early on and could only hear the sound of the winds, waves, and my sails as I journeyed, the immersion factor went up multiple fold with that quiet natural sound grounding me in the experience.
And visually, everything is quite attractive. It looks very Breath of the Wild inspired, and I've seen many criticize Windbound for this homage or soft plagiarism. But it's attractive enough on its own, and imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery. I would have been more bothered if the game didn't differentiate itself, but Windbound felt very different in practice than BOTW, for better or worse. But the islands are often beautiful, the enemies interesting, and again, the water is a real highlight in both physics and appearance. Sometimes things were a bit simplistic visually, and I sometimes wished the procedural generation had offered more variety. To be clear, you never know what you're going to find upon any given island, but it would have been nice to find more rarities - things that you'd not often come across. But instead, there weren't any great surprises after having spent some time with the game and a few restarts.
There are also some other downsides to note. Character movement could have been improved on land. Movement could feel slippery and imprecise much of the time. Like combat, it's functional but not tight or a highlight. And there's a limited amount of platforming that was also not that sharp in terms of its fundamentals. The menus and UI weren't always as intuitive as I would have liked either. There is a big sense of repetition as you essentially do the same thing five times in a row in order to reach the final boss, and that isn't even counting the additional repetition if you play on survivalist difficulty and find yourself starting over numerous times. And overall there is just some jank and lack of refinement you'd expect to see in a lower-budget (and sometimes big-budget) title. I had one instance where I died, and it spawned me in the water, and yet I couldn't see my character or move in any direction. I was under the waves and could do nothing. I solved it by exiting and loading again, but this is an example of the lack of final polish and spitshine Windbound displayed at times. There were a decent number of smaller and ultimately insignificant bugs as well that reflected a game that could have used a bit more time/budget/craftsmanship. I had another bug that was much more severe, though. I was in chapter 4 in maybe my 8th or 9th run from the beginning, and there was this mushroom that I wanted (good stamina recovery) that was in a recessed area of a tree. The option to pick it wouldn't activate like normal, but I was determined to get it. After hopping around and numerous normal attempts at adjusting my position, I rolled into the concave area and was able to finally pick the fungus. BIG MISTAKE! I was stuck and couldn't get out. I tried EVERYTHING from rolling back out dozens of times in various directions to crafting while highlighting areas outside the space I was stuck in - literally every possible thing I could think of. Sadly, there seemed to be no remedy. So I let my character starve (slowly) and started over YET AGAIN. I realize it's a small team and it's hard to anticipate everything, but things like that really frustrate, especially when you're enjoying so much of what otherwise is on offer. I decided to treat it as yet another obstacle on my road to ultimate victory - just another story on the road to the goal. (#coping) As an aside, developers really ought to offer an “I'm stuck” option in every game. (as in terms of the world geometry - not hints) It shouldn't be too hard to implement in order to move the player's position a few feet into a clear and unobstructed area. But, yeah, there was clearly some polish lacking in some areas. This is also a game that likely won't appeal to the impatient. Travel can, depending on circumstances (weather, vessel), be quite ponderous. If you're the type that cannot enjoy the moment for what it is and simply MUST “get on with it,” you may find Windbound aggravating. The narrative was also more appealing in concept than in detail - some sort of ancient tribal ocean conflict that didn't interest enough to really fixate upon, outside of the general tone, which, again, was intriguing.
But even acknowledging some very real flaws I experienced, I was captivated by this journey. The sensation of ocean travel on a primitive watercraft stayed fun for me for the close to 50 hours I spent with it. I think I ended up playing 9 or 10 runs before finally beating the final boss, even though I had that boss down to a sliver of health on what was probably my fourth or fifth attempt before encountering several more failures of various kinds. But the fact that I was not dissuaded from restarting numerous times speaks to the appeal I found in Windbound. I think this is a game best played on that survivalist difficulty due to how it adds a layer of consequence to everything that seems very befitting the feel of the adventure on the whole. With just a little more attention to detail and a little more finesse and craft, this could have been an all-timer for me. As it is, it remains a wonderful game that I'd happily recommend to anyone who looks out over the waters and wonders, “What's out there?” 4/5.
