90,828 concurrent players. 13,082 reviews, 89% of them positive. One million copies sold in under a week. Windrose — a $29.99 Early Access pirate game from a studio called Kraken Express — currently occupies the #1 spot on Steam’s top sellers chart.

Two positions below, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced sits at #3. Zero reviews. Zero concurrent players. The game doesn’t launch until July 9. It costs $59.99. It’s selling on franchise loyalty alone — the collective output of 11 Ubisoft studios across three continents, pre-ordered entirely on faith.

Two pirate games. One chart. A case study in what moves units in 2026.

Kraken Express launched Windrose into Early Access on April 14, co-published by Pocketpair Publishing — the same label behind Palworld, another survival-crafting breakout that became a phenomenon. Within six days, Windrose had sold 1 million copies and peaked at over 211,000 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB data cited by IGN. It’s a pirate-themed survival game in the mold of Valheim — gather resources, build ships, fight bosses, explore an open world, solo or in co-op. The developers estimate a 1.5 to 2.5 year Early Access runway, with roughly 50% more content planned for the full release.

Playing Through the Pain

The reviews paint a picture of genuine enthusiasm colliding with Early Access friction. One player logged 31.8 hours despite spending their first 9 hours fighting loading screens, crashes, and corrupted cloud saves. They still recommended the game. Another, who admitted pirate games weren’t their usual genre, wrote that Windrose could “easily have hundreds of hours put into it” — and gave special praise to the sea shanties.

Kraken Express acknowledged the server issues and pushed a patch on April 19. “We read your reviews and comments, watch your videos and streams, and sometimes, honestly, shed a pirate-y tear of happiness,” the studio wrote in a Steam update.

One review raised a stranger question. A player with 32.6 hours in Windrose claimed they received a Steam email asking them to review Sea of Thieves — a Microsoft-published game they hadn’t launched since 2023, with 39 total minutes of playtime. “Are they targeting windrose players?” they asked. Whether coincidence or algorithmic noise, the anecdote underscores the market gap Windrose is exploiting. Outside of Sea of Thieves and the original Black Flag, the pirate genre has been lean for years. Players have been hungry, and Kraken Express showed up with a full plate.

Brand Versus Product

Black Flag Resynced operates on entirely different logic. The original Black Flag sold over 11 million copies after its 2013 release, according to NME. The remake, rebuilt on Ubisoft’s latest Anvil engine, promises overhauled combat with a new parry system, smoother parkour, a dynamic weather system, three new officer characters with dedicated questlines, and ship pets — cats or monkeys for Edward Kenway’s Jackdaw. Voice actor Matt Ryan returns as Kenway. French musician Woodkid contributes a new score and sea shanties.

It’s a substantial package. It’s also completely unplayable. The standard edition runs $59.99, the PC Digital Deluxe $69.99, and the Collector’s Edition $199.99, according to IGN. Every copy contributing to that #3 chart position is a pre-order — money spent before a single customer can verify whether the remake justifies its price tag.

What the Numbers Actually Mean

Windrose’s 26.3% concurrent player dip from its last tracked count reflects standard post-launch attrition, not a falling knife. The numbers remain formidable for a game nine days into Early Access. Black Flag Resynced at #3 on pre-orders alone proves the raw gravitational pull of the Assassin’s Creed franchise — a brand that has shifted hundreds of millions of units, with a Netflix live-action adaptation now in development.

But the pricing gap tells the sharpest story. Thirty dollars buys a playable game with an active community, daily patches, and 13,000 reviews to consult. Sixty dollars buys a preorder for a remake from a publisher whose recent track record across the Assassin’s Creed franchise has been, to put it gently, inconsistent.

When Black Flag Resynced launches on July 9, it may well claim the chart’s top spot. Ubisoft’s marketing apparatus and a decade of nostalgia make that a reasonable bet. But right now, the pirate crown belongs to a small studio backed by the Palworld publisher — and the million players who put it there know exactly what they paid for.

Sources