Windbound

No key-bindings change option in 2026 is awful

Windbound isn't a bad game. It's enjoyable. A survival/crafting game set in an achipelago? With boat building, customising, exploring and lots of sailing into the wind? Good atmosphere and decent controls? My verdict is negative but *you* may like the game a lot. I kinda like it myself. I'd like it a lot more but for a few annoyances. Survival is not very difficult but combat is. Lighthearted visuals mask surprisingly Souls-y battles. Difficulty is inconsistent. Parts of the game are easy enough but difficulty spikes are very unforgiving. Being an exploration game, handholding is almost non-existant and quest markers are few and far between. Piecing objectives together is left to the player. This is a pro. A con is that any death except drowning under specific circumstances will throw you back to the beginning of the chapter. Yes, death in a survival game has to have consequences elsewise we'd just throw ourselves at all obstacles with abandon. But losing hours of progress in an already slow game? Death should be the player's fault, not the game's but Windbound is inconsistent. Exploration, scenery, randomness of the islands, those are all good. Crafting recipes are pretty good. Some recipes repeat with different materials (grass, wood, metal). Sailing is good. Maybe even very good. Being able to design and re-design your boats is a big draw. They sail differently of course. There's plenty to do and explore and on the one hand it is enjoyable, but on the other it feels slow. The game drags. Fast-travel is anathema here but often it is NOT fun having to travel around just to find some materials. Controls are what they are. Simple, kinda ok, nothing too terrible. Writing, what there is of it is par for the course, which is to say uninspired crap that won't offend anyone. Typicall mysticism escapism games go for. But again... it's not BAD. tl;dr Really, very few things suck about this game. The core of the game is nice but with inconsistent difficulty, and it wastes too much time. On the flip side, you're truly free to explore, gather, eat, improve your equipment and above all, build boats and sail them. If you hate combat, avoid combat. The non-lethal path is open. Maybe sharks disagree. Why not recommend? I don't want to play it. It stole 2-3 hours from me because it is decent and beguilling but i never felt like i wanted to play it for hours on end. Maybe it's a type of game that occasionnaly feels good? Fun in short bursts once or twice per year.

I got this game on 90% discount so it wasn't a failure for me personally but I would have refunded even for 50% off. The design is nice enough but the controls are somewhat janky and you need to get used to (mouse and kb). Also the combat is terrible. You can either lock on to targets and then you can dodge but not run. Or you try to fight "unlocked" where you can run (to hunt prey) but it's even jankier then. And what annoys me are overly complicated recipes for the simplest of tools. I have played over 6 hours in this game and was not able to craft an axe. Why? Because it requires some part of an animal that I yet have to encounter. But I was able to craft a digging tool (not really a shovel more like a pick). That only required 20 minutes running around, collecting stones, crafting multiple sling shots and kiting and shooting at a large animal while doing minor damage to wear it down because you need the horn for said digging tool. Storage is also an issue. You get one position for a storage on your first boat but that's full quick, same with a bag you can craft.

It is empty and unbalanced. On the first island, you are almost killed by a pig; on 4. island, you have to kill 2 bison-like creatures with a stick, a spear, or a sling. Both like to damage them like a half-health bar per hit. And they have 20 healhbar. Oh, and if you die, you wake up in the middle of the ocean... So no, thank you.

It may be good for others, but to me, its very VERY empty, I got bored, and the fact that the map empties when you die was annoying. Glad I got it on sale for like a dollar because I wouldn't have paid full price.

its a beautiful and well crafted world, the music, sailling and survival mechanics are super fun, but the combat is so janky and not fun.

Its a good time killer, but I've noticed 4-5 bugs. And the devs abandoned it 5 years ago so no updates will be coming. Which is a shame cause I'd play a spinoff of this game that takes the whole gameplay loop and expands on it.