Dear god, I love me some Survival games. What I want to love more are pirate games, but lately I’ve been let down by them. Not mentioning any names, but pirate games generally don’t live up to the likes of great television media such as ‘Black Sails’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, heck, even ‘One Piece’. Developer Crosswind Crew, ‘Crosswind’ is an ambitious dive into piracy as you rise the ranks to take the seven seas. These are my initial impressions of the time I had with the Alpha build.

Set in the 1700s, this tale takes you to an era of empires and piracy, where warring nations waged wars on the open seas against one another. Upon discovering a mysterious and powerful artifact, the East India Company has tasked you, a talented ship’s person, with transporting it from the Caribbean to London. Under the shadows of the night, you are discovered, the artifact is stolen, and you are shipwrecked and marooned; here, your true test of pirate life begins. The alpha keeps a lot of the actual plot under wraps here, but I look forward to diving into it more, as what is present so far is a pretty solid beginning.

The gameplay opens with some in-depth character customisation that honestly impressed me for an indie game like this. I hope that with a full release, they expand even more on this, offering even more hairstyles, colours, and tattoo options. The game began with a tutorial, which was nice to see, and as you fight your way to freedom, you learn the basics of combat. Once on shore, the survival elements kick in.

Here, you must avoid enemies and creatures as you collect resources and materials around your deserted island to survive objectives and milestones. Currently, it is all fairly standard, involving tasks such as gathering sticks, stones, and other materials to build shelters, upgrade tools and weapons, and create new items that will aid in your survival journey.

The catalogue of items to build, though, is impressive as you develop the camp around you, and is mostly on brand with what you would expect pirates to be able to build. It was all very on theme, and I loved it visually. Building is so fun, I didn’t even want to leave my camp most of the time.

You do get tools such as picks and axes, as well as weapons like a cutlass or a pistol. These can be upgraded with the right materials, making your life a lot easier. These can be used to take down creatures such as boars or, believe it or not, rogue dodos, or even vile creatures of the night, such as drowns, doomed victims of the sea, that stalk the shorelines under moonlight.

It looks like they are expanding hugely on the diversity of creatures and enemies, thankfully, as this is normally the first thing that bores me in survival games, especially if the enemies are a small selection of the same that you have to grind on a loop for materials.

I haven’t had the opportunity for extensive sailing exploration yet and will return at a later date to add my impressions of this aspect. From what I have seen in the roadmap, this will be a fun-looking aspect of the gameplay. They promise epic sea battles, seamless land-to-sea action, and a wide range of ships.

The in-game graphics are standard for what I would expect from this sort of game. While not groundbreaking in realism, they are of decent quality, with palms swaying in the breeze, water rippling on the shorelines, and dense bush to cut through. The story, while lacking in the alpha at the present time, is presented well and in an entertaining way through comic book intermissions, which are very well animated. The music complements it well too, with very scenic tunes. Currently, the sound effects are a bit quirky and subdued.

Overall, Crosswind feels like a solid start to an interesting survival game that has most of the elements needed to be entertaining. As an alpha build, I am well aware of the potential bugs and tweaks that need to be done to polish it up, but I look forward to seeing what happens in its evolution, despite the fact that it ran like a dream on my 3070ti. The seas are looking promising for ‘Crosswind’, and I can’t wait to dive into the next build.

Written by: Stacey