Dear captains,

Over the past few days, some of you have encountered several issues. Our team has been working in emergency mode to resolve them as quickly as possible so that more players can enjoy the game without disruptions.

Version: 0.10.0.3.104-256f9653

We identified issues with certain ISPs blocking parts of our networking services. To address this, we’ve implemented the following changes:

• Connectivity Server Selection: You can now manually choose a specific connectivity server instead of relying on automatic selection. You can also see which servers are reachable. Dedicated server settings can be configured via [c]ServerDescription.json[/c].

• Known Issue: If your connection is unstable (high ping or packet loss), a connectivity server may appear as “available” even if it cannot actually be used.

You can now manually select which connectivity server to use.

If you were unable to connect with your friends before, try using different connectivity servers. All players must have access to at least one shared server.

This setting can also be adjusted for dedicated servers. Please allow some time for hosting providers to adapt to these changes, especially since it’s currently the weekend.

We also identified issues related to connections within the same network, as well as certain self-hosted dedicated server configurations. To address this, we’ve added the option to connect via Direct IP:

• Direct IP Connection: A new option is now available when hosting a server (both in-game and dedicated). This works as an alternative to our connectivity services. When using Direct IP, players can only join via your IP address, and invite codes will not work. Dedicated server settings can be configured via [c]ServerDescription.json[/c].

• Known Issue: When using Direct IP, if you enter an incorrect password or there is a version mismatch, the game will return you to the main menu without displaying an error message.

If you are unable to connect via connectivity services and none of them work for you (we’ve seen cases where ISPs block everything related to Windrose), you can try connecting via Direct IP as a workaround.

Advanced feature: May require manual router configuration (port forwarding / NAT setup). This option is intended for advanced users.

We discovered an issue where, in rare cases, player save files may become corrupted. This happens more frequently when playing across multiple machines while using Steam Cloud synchronization.

We are still investigating the root cause. In the meantime, to mitigate the risk, we’ve added an automatic save backup system. Each time you launch the game, a backup of your save will be created. The system stores up to 30 backups, after which older ones are overwritten.

Instructions on how to restore your save in case of corruption are provided below.

We still recommend avoiding the use of cloud saves if possible while we continue investigating the issue.

• An automatic save backup is created on game launch (both for client and dedicated server).

• The maximum number of backup files is limited to 30.

• Backups are stored in the folder:
  [c]C:\\Users\\%username%\\AppData\\Local\\R5\\Saved\\SaveProfiles\\{steamid}_Backups[/c]

• When the file limit is exceeded, older backups are deleted (the 31st backup replaces the oldest one).

• Go to:
  [c]C:\\Users\\%username%\\AppData\\Local\\R5\\Saved\\SaveProfiles\\%your_Steam_ID%_Backups[/c]

• Select the latest backup (or any preferred one). Backups are named by date and time.

• Copy all contents from this folder (it should contain one folder + [c]AccountDescription.json[/c]).

• Navigate to:
  [c]C:\\Users\\%username%\\AppData\\Local\\R5\\Saved\\SaveProfiles\\{your_Steam_ID}\\RocksDB[/c]

• Paste the copied files there (replace existing files if prompted).

For a dedicated server, the process is the same as for a local game. The difference is that save files are located inside the server’s installation folder.

• Go to:
  [c]\\R5\\Saved\\SaveProfiles\\Default_Backups\\[/c]

• Find the relevant backup folder. Backups are named by date and time.

• Copy the required files (folder + [c]AccountDescription.json[/c]) from the chosen backup folder.

• Paste them into the corresponding [c]RocksDB[/c] folder of the active save, replacing files if needed.

• Fixed an issue that prevented loading into the main menu if your Windows username contained non-Unicode characters

• When launching a server (either in-game or via a .bat file), its process priority is now automatically set to “Above Normal”

• HDR can now be correctly activated

• Increased grass render distance

• Fixed a feather simulation bug for Plague Witch

• Minor fixes to trader models, outfits, and poses

• Fixed several rigging issues that caused armor clipping across various sets

• Fixed a rare issue where the game could crash due to item-related bugs

Ahoy, mateys!

First off, thank you. Seriously. The amount of love and support you’ve been showing us lately hasn’t gone unnoticed, and we really appreciate it.

Over the past few days, we’ve been investigating a number of issues, and today we want to talk a bit more about the Steam Cloud save problems some of you have been running into.

From what we’ve seen so far, it can show up in a few different ways:

• Playing on 2–3 different devices → and then suddenly not being able to log into the game anymore

• Playing on a single device → but after saves get uploaded to the cloud, you can’t get past the main menu

• Other odd behavior that’s hard to pin down and doesn't resolve after a simple PC restart

We know how frustrating this is, especially if you’re used to switching between setups without even thinking about it. We’re really sorry this is happening, and please know we’re actively working on it.

With so many different setups and devices out there, the tricky part has been pinning down the exact root cause. We’ve been trying to keep up with reports (mostly through Discord[discord.gg]), but we know that’s not ideal for everyone. Thanks for sticking with us anyway.

For now, we recommend:

• Avoid switching between devices if you can

• Back up your save files manually from time to time

• If you run into corrupted saves, turn off Steam Cloud before restoring from a backup

Game Client Save folder (if you play solo or self-host):
[c]%LOCALAPPDATA%\\R5\\Saved\\SaveProfiles[/c]

Dedicated Server save folder:
[c]R5\\Saved\\SaveProfiles[/c]

We recommend backing up the entire SaveProfiles folder in both cases. Also, if Steam asks which save to use, it’s generally safer to go with your local files whenever possible. Turning Steam Cloud back on can sometimes overwrite your local progress, which might set you back or undo your latest saves, so just be a bit careful there.

For now, we’re keeping Steam Cloud on. We may need to turn it off later, as fixing this in a controlled environment is much easier than trying to patch it live for everyone at once. Please stay tuned.

And again, thank you for the trust you’re giving us right now. We don’t take it lightly. We care a lot about this game and about you guys, and we’re doing everything we can to sort this out. It’s a long journey, but we’re in it together.

Much love,
Kraken Express

On Friday, Apr 17, we are going to update the game to the version [c]0.10.0.2.54-451ec92d[/c], addressing some of the current issues.

Online modes will not be available from 12 AM PDT / 3 AM EDT / 7 AM GMT / 9 AM CEST for approximately one hour! You can check your local date & time here[www.timeanddate.com] (enter your city to view it). Offline mode will not be affected, but we recommend downloading the update as soon as possible.

Connectivity Fixes:

• Disabled the access token generation cooldown for dedicated servers, this should alleviate some of the connectivity issues for dedicated hosts

• More connectivity fixes are underway and are currently being tested, they need a little more time before we can release them. Thank you for your patience!

Other Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where the client did not check the server version before connecting, it now displays a UI error message if the server is outdated;

• Removed the 8-character minimum limit for invite codes, the limit is now 1–32 characters;

• Fixed a crash caused by ship spawns in Tortuga;

• Boss scaling now functions correctly when more than 3 players initiate a fight;

• Fixed a bug where the Boar Whistle could become unobtainable if it fell into the Altar's bowl due to full inventory when receiving it;

• Fixed the animation for carrying objects;

• Fixed the Plague Halberd special attack VFX floating above the deck during boarding;

• Fixed an issue where healing potion effects could be interrupted by other consumables or dashes;

• Fixed musket movement while aiming, it should now be smoother;

• Fixed the Overpenetration talent, it should now function correctly;

• Fixed fire damage numbers for the Dragonbreath Blunderbuss, they are now displayed correctly with the proper VFX;

• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused Thomas Richards to switch targets mid-sprint during his Grab attack;

• Fixed a bug where Thomas Richards would sometimes use his Grab attack immediately after throwing bombs;

• Fixed Grenadier grenades: they now pass through players and other NPCs;

• Fixed Grenadier aggro: they no longer lose targets as quickly and will correctly close the distance if a player moves too far away;

• Fixed the Plague Crusher getting stuck in trees, it now correctly destroys trees while moving;

• Removed the "Wishlist Now" link from the main menu. That was actually stupid.

• Extended the host server start timeout to 5 minutes to allow more time for world version updates;

• Fixed numerous localization errors;

• DedicatedServer.md now contains examples for WorldPresetType: "Easy", "Medium", and "Hard"

We thank you for your support, and hope that this hotfix will make your sailing smoother over the weekend.

Kraken Express

Ahoy, captains! While we’re working on the next hotfix update (expected to come this Friday), let us take a short break and thank YOU for this milestone: over 500,000 Windrose copies sold just in 48 hours since launch. That’s a very humbling moment for us, just like seeing the game hitting nearly 100,000 concurrent players yesterday. All of this is possible because of you and thanks to your support and passion for Windrose. You are simply amazing, captains! We are truly thankful for this opportunity and will keep working hard to deliver.

Kraken Express

Ahoy, captains! We are deplyoing a small hotfix to address several issues.

• Minor localization fixes

• Nitrado link is now correct

• Text fields in the "Show Server Info" section of the Esc-menu are now hidden by default, click the reveal buttons to view them.

Ahoy, captains! We are finally here, and honored to be on the same ship with all of you. We have just released the game into Early Access and, while it has certainly been a long journey, the most exciting part is that even more lies ahead! We hope you all enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed working on it.

Now a new chapter begins: charting the course to 1.0. We are absolutely sure that with your feedback and passion for Windrose we will be able to create something special for all the brave souls who hear the call of the sea! Have fun, and thank you!

P.S. One more thing: we are renaming our studio from Windrose Crew to Kraken Express. It just sounds cooler, otherwise, that’s still us.

See you on the high seas!
Kraken Express

Ahoy, captains! It has been a long journey, and we are finally ready to start its new exciting chapter together with you. Windrose Early Access is coming out on April 14 – in less than a week! Don’t forget to add the game to your wishlist and check out the release time map to be prepared!

In case you are wondering about the price, Windrose base game will cost 29,99 USD.

If you’d like to support the game a bit more, you can get the official soundtrack (including in-game ambient music, our trailer tracks and a hearty selection of sea shanties recorded by Seán Dagher) with a few swashbuckling wallpapers in Supporter Bundle at 39,99 USD.

The prices in other currencies will be appropriately adjusted.

We can’t stress enough how important your support is! Thank you for being here: we will do our best to live up to your expectations and evolve the game into 1.0 with your feedback on board. We hope you share our excitement for this adventure, and look forward to sailing with you – it’s a big honor for the whole team.
See you on the high seas!
Windrose Crew

You are amazing! Seriously, after climbing to the top demos of Steam Next Fest and reaching one million wishlists we were not expecting this momentum to continue — but here we are, with over 1,500,000 sea wolves waiting for Windrose to finally set sail. Another impressive number — over 800,000 captains have tried the demo! And by the way, you can still do it, the demo is staying up until the Early Access launch. 

Thanks to your involvement in the demo, we’ve got tons of feedback to work on, including over 12,000 completed surveys, 7500+ Steam reviews, and lots and lots of in-game reports and numerous social media messages. So now we’re working on several of the most frequent things you talked about to incorporate them into Early Access. 

The list is not complete and is subject to change, it’s work-in-progress, after all. Some of these features may change or never make it into the game, but we will do our best to bring as many of them to life as possible!

• Co-op on one ship — manning the cannons. We’re introducing the ability to man the ship batteries (one player per battery), so you will have more reasons to bring friends along!

• Loot variety. Sorry, no more “always dig here to find the Rapier of Thousand Cuts”. To better support the spirit of exploration, whenever you find a piece of armor or a weapon it will be randomized, so you never know which item you will get from a chest. The loot will also be different for different players on the server, so it will be more exciting to find new stuff with your friends. Enemy loot is also being improved, so high-risk encounters have a clearer payoff and the overall risk-reward ratio of combat feels more satisfying.

• More players in co-op. We’re testing the increased limits of co-op capacity. While the real performance in the end will be affected by many factors, including those beyond our control (connection of each player and the specs of each server), we will do our best to increase the coop limit from 4 to 8 players. That said, in terms of gameplay difficulty scaling, we believe the best experience lies in the 1-4 players range. With more people in your crew at the same time, you will probably steamroll everything laughing hard, but that’s fine if that’s the way you want to have fun!

• Hold to gather resources. An optional experimental setting will let you simply hold your mouse button when working hard with that axe or pickaxe instead of clicking.

• FOV slider. The ability to fine-tune field of view to your liking.

• Shanties feel. While we absolutely love the work Sean Dagher did, we’re adding a couple of coarser, less melodic voices into the backing vocals so that the shanties feel a bit more pirate-y. 

• Signal fire. Signal fire. We (and poor Dr. Galen as well) have noticed that many of you have been building makeshift lighthouses out of Bonfires, which do not work very well in this capacity. That ends now! We’re adding a special Signal fire building element, which you can see many miles away. Nothing beats sailing to the beacon of your home base at night!

• DLSS/FSR support. You’ll be able to select Nvidia DLSS or FSR as your upscaler. 

• Controller improvements. While we still don’t consider our controller support perfect, we are gradually improving it to make it more usable. You should be able to play the game with the controller now, but we still recommend playing with mouse and keyboard where possible, and plan to further improve the controller support in one of the post–Early Access updates.

• Dismantling workbench. Surviving on the Archipelago means being resourceful. Early in the game, you’ll be able to build a dedicated workbench for dismantling unwanted items. There is still a cost to doing so: you only receive the base crafting materials back, and any resources invested into upgrades are not refunded.

• Target lock switch. You will be able to cycle between targets by swiping your mouse across them, or by binding specific hotkeys to switch to the nearest target in four directions (up, down, left, and right).

We hope it was an interesting read. Thank you all once again for your passion and input. We can’t imagine a better community for Windrose, and will keep working hard to deliver. 

See you soon, captains!

Always yours,
Windrose Crew

Ahoy, mateys!

We recently hosted our first-ever Building Contest: a community event where players could truly unleash their creativity.

The response was incredible: over 190 submissions poured in, ranging from cozy survival shacks perched on cliffs to sprawling, intricate pirate strongholds. Now it’s time to shine a spotlight on the best of the best. We hope these builds inspire you as much as they inspired us!

I. Team work creators — ScottishViking, youwrongs, DorkGirl21, beardedninja:
Arrgh, Old Hand… ’Tis either cruel fate or the devil’s black luck that ye washed ashore this very day.

Five years ago today, a wicked storm drove Captain Wood’s ship onto the rocks. Only he crawled from the surf, armed with naught but his broken saber. This same isle — once a hidden offshoot of Morant Bay owned by John Reeder, with its secret secondary ironworks castin’ the finest ship cannons from local ore — had already fallen. While Reeder’s men tore the mine-town down on orders from Lieutenant Governor Archibald Campbell, the Spaniards swept in sudden-like. The British fled unfinished, leavin’ the foundry standin’. The Dons claimed it all and raised a grand base: a proud church in the square and a beautiful Governor’s mansion overlookin’ the bay.

Wood freed his lads from slave camps and Spanish prisons, then led a desperate charge against the outpost. With both galleons away at sea, blind grace let us win the day. We renamed her Puerto de Malas Intenciones. When the galleons returned, one by one, we met ’em with Reeder’s own cannons. Few survived. Them that did swore the articles and joined our band. Now we live free here — with our women and bastard whelps — defendin’ the rock and makin’ a name on the deep blue.

But another man with a broken sword crawls ashore on this cursed anniversary? Ye’ll need that blade, Old Hand. For on this frightful day… we fight the Kraken.

II. Creator — Alytos:

Captain Blond Beard squinted at the storm-slick docks of his newborn haven, where torchlight licked stone towers and crooked timbered taverns. Rain hissed on the flags as he barked orders to his crew, rolling barrels of spice, rum, and powder toward fresh-built stalls beside the central well. This trading post would make him master of the sea lanes—if it survived the night.

From the jungle beyond the palisade came an unholy screech.

“Dodos off the starboard sand!” the lookout cried.

A tide of plump, blue feathered beasts burst from the surf, eyes wild, beaks tearing open crates. One dodo gulped a pouch of sapphires; another rammed a support beam, splintering Blond Beard’s new ramp.

“Feathered fiends are bad for business,” the captain growled.

He leveled his musket as pirates formed a ragged firing line before the gate. Smoke rolled beneath towering masts while shots cracked through the rain. Dodos tumbled, yet more charged, pecking at boots, ripping belts, and scattering coins.

Blond Beard kicked a powder barrel down the steps, lit its fuse, and sent it thundering into the swarm. The blast scattered birds and sand. At dawn, the trading post still stood—open for trade, closed to dodos.

III. Creator — notyounow:

🌅Sunrise Port🌅
Founded on the Rock of Hope by Red Jack and his crew, was created to become a center for a peaceful and commercial life, made possible by perseverance and mutual assistance. Such success and the acquisition of wealth can bring many troubles, but Red Jack closely watches the port and its inhabitants from the height of his tower.

I wanted to build a high port, where even the piers would be tall and capable of handling the largest ships. I laid out tiers—lower docks for small ships and boats, and higher residential buildings flanking the main cluster of shopping arcades, artisans' residences, and a warehouse. On the upper tier is a tavern and a tower with a signal fire, where the governor and his private meetings take place. I didn't want to make the port's appearance clear and straightforward, introducing a bit of chaos and whimsy into its structure, to make it feel alive even without inhabitants for now.

It took me about 170 hours to create this structure, and I would happily have spent the same amount of time on building.

IV. Creator — 是小饼肝:

I just built it casually to use up some resources I can’t take with me. The idea was to make a huge skull embedded in the rocky mountain, but it ended up too small. I couldn’t chisel into the mountain, and there wasn’t enough interior space, so this is just a rough version for you to check out.

V. Creator — Raysix:

Creator — Spammals[www.twitch.tv]:

A strange wind...rose over the ocean where out of nowhere the Bow of the fabled liner RMS TITANIC suddenly appeared and crashed ashore! Her hull replaced with wood, the lifeboats all missing. Pirates have been left stumped with mystery as to what's happening! But with 1st class luxury, who's asking questions!

Creator — Futerko:"The Sunken Captain"

My concept was to create a mysterious pirate hideout centered around the remains of a wrecked ship.

According to the story, this ship once belonged to a legendary pirate captain who vanished during a violent storm.

The wreck was later discovered near a giant skull-shaped cave, making it the perfect refuge for pirates and travelers alike.

Inside the wreck, I built a hidden pirate tavern where sailors can rest, drink, and share tales of lost treasures and cursed seas!

This was our very first building competition, and the response has blown us away. Every one of you who picked up a block and created something, you’re all winners in our book. Thank you kindly for your creativity and dedication.

If you enjoy building, storytelling, or simply exploring amazing player creations, we’d love to have you join us for the next one.

Always yours,
Windrose Crew