One million copies sold. A peak of 222,134 concurrent players. 89% positive across 22,681 Steam reviews. #7 on Steam’s Top Sellers, with 64,652 people playing right now and an 11% upward trend over the last measurement period.

Here’s the top negative review on the game’s Steam page, from a player with 29.3 hours logged: “I really really wanted to like this game but it inevitably becomes annoying AF. Absolute garbage. Ok devs, repeat after me: a stamina mechanic is not a replacement for engaging gameplay. It’s a gimmick. It’s a crutch.”

Windrose, the pirate survival game from developer Kraken Express published with Pocketpair (the studio behind Palworld), launched into Early Access on April 14 and immediately tore up the Steam charts. Forbes reported the game tripled its concurrent players within its first week, going from a launch-day peak of 69,444 to 222,134 by April 19. It sold a million copies at $26.99 (with a 10% launch discount off the $29.99 base price) before its first week was out.

The pitch is catnip. Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag’s naval fantasy crossed with Valheim’s survival loop, seasoned with Soulslike combat. You’re a shipwrecked captain in an alternate 18th-century Caribbean, building, crafting, and fighting across procedurally generated islands with up to seven friends in co-op. It’s strictly PvE — no PvP ship battles, no ganking. Eurogamer notes the game was originally conceived as a free-to-play MMO called Crosswind before alpha feedback pushed the team toward a premium co-op model.

Players rave about the exploration, the building, and the sheer volume of content. One reviewer with 83.2 hours wrote: “If Minecraft, Salt2, and Skyrim had a baby… Nice job folks.” Eurogamer highlighted a review calling it “refreshing to play a survival game that actually respects your time.” The consensus: deep sandbox, gorgeous world, always something to work toward.

The Green Circle That Won’t Stop Draining

Dig into the 2,440 negative reviews — roughly 11% of the total — and a clear pattern emerges. Stamina is the lightning rod.

The complaints are specific and consistent. Players describe a game where the core loop gets choked by a system demanding constant management. Every sword swing, every dodge, every sprint drains the green circle. When you’re surrounded by enemies in a game balanced for co-op — where solo players are routinely outnumbered — that circle empties fast. The result isn’t tension. It’s tedium.

A detailed review on Medium laid out the cascade. The camera’s field of view is too tight to track flanking enemies. The lock-on feature “often points you in the wrong direction.” Your ship’s crew physically blocks you from reaching targets. And because there’s no meaningful death penalty — enemies don’t heal when you respawn, so you can throw yourself at encounters until they die — the stamina system creates frustration without creating stakes. You’re not mastering combat. You’re grinding it down through attrition.

Good Enough to Keep, Frustrating Enough to Notice

Here’s what makes Windrose interesting: the player count is still climbing. The game is trending up at 11% on its most recent Steam chart snapshot. If the stamina problem were a true dealbreaker, you’d expect the typical Early Access curve — launch hype crashing into week-two reality.

Instead, Windrose has legs. PCGamesN reported it surpassed Rust and Crimson Desert on the Steam charts in its first week, and its current #7 position suggests the building, the exploration, and the PvE co-op fantasy are carrying players through the friction. The survival systems, the progression, the quest structure — those are what keep people logging 50, 70, even 100-hour runs.

Kraken Express estimates Windrose won’t hit 1.0 for another 1.5 to 2.5 years, with plans to add roughly 50% more content including new biomes, bosses, and ships. The studio has also said it wants “to explore additional gameplay systems, not just add content into the existing ones.” If the stamina and combat issues are on that list, the trajectory looks sustainable. If they’re not — if the “annoying AF” chorus keeps growing alongside the player count — Windrose risks becoming a game people recommend with an asterisk.

The asterisk is already there. The Steam page’s top negative review, pinned for all to see, comes from a player with 29 hours telling you the game “inevitably becomes annoying.” That’s not someone who bounced off the tutorial. That’s a committed player who hit a wall.

The question isn’t whether Windrose is good. At 89% positive and climbing the charts, the market has answered that. The question is whether the parts that work are strong enough to carry you past the parts that don’t.

Sources