Perhaps if the story were more overt the sting of failure wouldn’t feel so bad? I am sure that there’s a message here that ties with the failed civilisation and your failed attempts to tame the lands around you, but its crudely told and honestly, it is a little frustrating to have made progress through increasingly harder to navigate seas only for all of that to be wasted and asked to start again. Upon death you will lose all items other than those you had on your immediate person and, significantly, you will be thrown back to the beginning of Chapter One again. Alternatively, you can choose to play Survivalist which makes the process of survival a little harder. You can choose to play Story mode, which means that upon death you won’t lose your items and, more crucially, your progress other than pushing you to the start of the chapter you were on. The islands of Windbound are procedurally generated, so for each play through you won’t get the exact same layout of islands, neatly ensuring that each time you assume the role of Kara you will have a slightly different process of discovery. Indeed, this is somewhat borne out by the two ways in which you can play.
Who these peoples were and what happened to them kind of gets lost, so much so that the narrative really doesn’t feel like Windbound’s primary concern. Across the many islands, you find yourself on you will see evidence of a civilisation that has long since gone. Windbound is a procedurally generated world with a narrative loosely told through wordless cutscenes. Seeing your vessel transform from a simple canoe that you paddle everywhere with to a multi-layered craft with storage and crafting stations provides a tangible sense of progress, something that the over-arching narrative somehow fails to do. It is a neat mechanic and upgrading the boat is one of the strongest aspects of the survival loop. As such your boat is your place of safety, a place that grows with you as you explore more and more of the worlds that Windbound has to offer.
WINDBOUND SWITCH REVIEW SERIES
Marooned on an a series of islands, it makes sense that Kara will need to travel across the waters to each one to gather different resources and craft more complex items. Like all survival games, you will need a place of safety, it is here where Windbound distinguishes itself a little from other survival games. There is a stamina and health bar to contend with but it is all fairly simple stuff and complemented by a streamlined crafting system that, while fiddly to navigate, communicates clearly the item type and the resources required to craft it it. Cutting grass and gathering sticks and stones will allow you to craft crude weapons for her, whereas gathering berries and culling the lands of its local fauna will provide her with sustenance. Playing in third person, you will need to guide Kara to gather resources to craft increasingly complex items that will aid her in her survival. The survival aspects of Windbound quickly set into a rhythm. It features a strong central theme and an interesting sense of discovery, but some of the mechanics get in the way and strip a lot of the fun away. She has nothing bar a small knife, and her goal is to survive long enough to uncover the mysteries of the islands and to reunite with her clan. When she awakens, she is in a strange land, an archipelago of small islands flanked on all sides by the sea. A colossal sea creature rises from the depths destroying the fragile vessel she’s on, sending her into the waves.
Windbound has a strong start as the main protagonist Kara is separated from her clan during a storm.
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