Windbound Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: Windbound
Genre: Adventure | Action | Survival
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, PlayStation 4 & Xbox One)
Developers | Publishers: 5 Lives Studios | Koch Media
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US E10
Price: EU €29,99 | USD $29.99 | UK £24.99
Release Date: August 28th, 2020

Review code used, with special thanks to Joshua from Koch Media UK

Developed by 5 Lives Studios, Windbound, an Adventure/ Survival game has been released on the Nintendo Switch. Windbound focuses on nomadic hunting and exploration, together with custom boat building and immersive tactile sailing experience.

Upon the release of the Windbound preview video earlier this year there were a few comparisons made between Windbound and The Legend of Zelda in particular Breath of the Wild and Wind Waker. A gilder, a raft to sail the sea, the striking art style. Is Windbound a Zelda copy cat? Let’s take a look at it.

Shipwrecked and Alone

Kara, a warrior wakes up alone on the tiny island with scant resources, she has been shipwrecked on an uncharted island in the middle of nowhere and separated from her clan. Kara must learn to adapt and survive while solving the mysteries of a series of Forbidden Islands.

From awakening on the tiny island, the goal of Windbound is to head towards any procedurally generated landmasses you see close by or on the horizon that makes up the archipelago of Forbidden Islands and for Kara to find her way back to her people. There are just about enough resources on the island for Kara to craft a small grass canoe to be able to get off the island and move to the next one.

All the islands are procedurally generated, meaning each time you start the game the number and placement of the islands and the resources on them are random. And as you move through the chapters each island group is larger than the one before with more islands to discover.

There are two play settings to choose from. You can choose Survivalist mode and this mode is for players who want the full Windbound experience. Upon death, you’ll return to the beginning of chapter one with only the items in your held inventory slots retained and the combat difficulty is normal. On the other hand, Storyteller mode lets player focus on the story of the game, your full inventory is retained plus the chapter progression, meaning you start at the beginning of the chapter where Kara dies in and combat difficultly is reduced.

Kara wears a mysterious necklace with an amulet and on her travels, on some of the islands, you will find a large hexagon tower for Kara to scale. Once at the top, she will interact with a pedestal and in return receive an even more mysterious nautilus key: an arcane relic shell that resonates with a mysterious power.

You need three of these Nautilus keys to open the Nautilus Tower which is found on a separate island. By using the keys a pathway opens up to the Nautilus Tower to let Kara go through into The Crossing and move on to the next chapter of the game.

Each time you climb a Nautilus Tower you’re shown segments of cryptic text and as you stand in the Crossing. A mural is unveiled after each chapter on the wall. This is how the story of Windbound is relayed to the player.

You’ll also find peculiar ruins that appear to be left behind from an ancient civilisation here and there. These lead to more questions such as who inhabited the ruins and what is the creature you must take on? It took me quite a while to grasp the meaning of the story since it’s told in broken segments. All these questions propel you to the next area and keep you running around to gather materials to press on, even when it feels a bit uncomprehending at the start of the game.

Food and Weapons are a Must

If Kara is to survive in this world of Windbound she will need some weapons to defend herself with. Luckily as Kara awakens on an island you soon discover she has one weapon, an unbreakable knife. If you want more weapons and trust me, you will, you’ll need to craft them yourself and they do break. I wonder, where have we seen that feature before?

There is a simplified crafting system and once you have collected the correct resources you pick the item you want to craft form the menu and Kara will craft it. Collecting new resources can trigger a recipe to be learned by Kara. The crafting system is basically just the menu on the screen, though considering Kara is stranded on a deserted island she wouldn’t have a crafting room handy. It does adhere to the survival nature of the game and the freedom to craft on the go.

Hunger plays a huge part in Windbound as you’re constantly checking Kara’s health and stamina bar. As Kara collects resources she uses stamina over time and she has to eat to restore it. If Kara loses all her stamina, she will begin to starve to death and it’s not a nice way for Kara to die. You must hunt for food, either by collecting KojiBerry and Rustcap mushrooms which grow on some of the islands, or by hunting and killing the animals such as a small herd of Razorback pigs, to the massive and fearsome Gorehorn or the large toxic Pondwomper.

Wooden spears, slings and bows can be crafted and as you explore the islands you’ll receive recipes to craft stronger weapons such as a Torment bow which charges up arrows and creates a shield-like structure around the prey which inflicts bonus damage on the prey.

You can stalk your prey by crouching and sneaking up on them and using the surroundings to your advantage. There’s an enemy lock-on function so Kara keeps her eye on the prey, you can dodge roll to get out of the way if the preys attacks. Overall, once I got used to the controls, I found the killing of prey to be fast-paced. There’s the constant need to watch Kara’s stamina meter, adding to the concerns you have to keep in mind during the action. And it also adds extra tension during combat which otherwise felt quite natural and straightforward.

You’ll spend your time managing your hunger, mitigating your dwindling stamina and juggling the contents of your item bag as it’s short on space at the start of Windbound. Any food will spoil in your inventory if it’s there too long and become putrid. As the game progresses you get a recipe for a larger bag and you can craft a jar for your raft so managing your items  and food in your bag is crucial.

Off Sailing Across the Sea

To get off the island you must craft a grass canoe. As you move through the chapters you will find different resources, allowing you to craft a bigger and better boat. Kara goes from a small grass raft to a large catamaran with decks, sails, and defensive spikes to create a pretty big boat in the end.

Sailing is a lot of fun, once you get the hang of it that is. You need to navigate the raft through rough seas dealing with the direction of the wind and predators such as large sharks that roam the oceans. And as your boat grows in size, this changes the way it sails. You have to be careful your boat doesn’t tip over too far from land and results in Kara drowning. Wind and the direction of the wind all have to be taken into account when sailing. I’m not an expert on sailing by any means, however, the sailing did feel natural to me with the boat behaving how you would expect it to. I had expected there to be more fish in the sea. Sure, there are jellyfish and the sharks I mentioned and you do see one or two fish, but for such a large open ocean it’s pretty empty of fish to see or catch for food. 

There are shrines where Kara can change her abilities or Blessings by using the Sea Shards that are collected throughout the many islands.  Blessings such as Scurrying Legs of Skuttl which allows Kara to use less stamina or Gortil’s Fortitude which greatly reduces the effects of poison. You might be lucky and land on an island that has a Health shrine or Stamina shrine on it as these shrines increase Kara’s health or stamina permanently.

A Tutorial of Sorts

There is a tutorial that feeds you information about how to survive, craft new weapons and cook food to keep Kara alive as you play the game. The tutorial doesn’t go into any great detail and if you don’t remember something, well that’s just too bad as there isn’t any written detail. Nothing like a journal or something to read up on in the menu, this is something I feel could be added to the game in a future update, maybe.

Even though there is a tutorial not everything is explained to the player. For example, when you build a fire to cook meat, you aren’t told how to tell if the meat is cooked or not. Or does it? It doesn’t point out directly how you know if the food is cooked but if you watch the crafting screen, it will show the little square that is the meat. It’s originally coloured green when the meat is on the fire and the green square slowly fills up with a brown colour. This indicates the meat is cooked and you can collect it from the fire. It is not obvious right away that this is how cooking works and it would be helpful if the game actually explained things like the cooking process to the player.

There is a quick menu where Kara stores her food, a press on the up direction button and Kara can have a bite to eat. A nice addition and quick to use during hunting, however when Kara is sailing the quick menu is still shown on the screen but you can’t use it right away. For Kara to eat you must stop Kara controlling the boat in the middle of the ocean, use the quick menu and stave her hunger. Doing so breaks the momentum of sailing, especially if the boat has gotten up to a good speed.

I’ve tried both Modes on my playtime with Windbound and I must say I much prefer the Storyteller Mode as I really do begrudge losing all my hard-earned and crafted gear, even though you still lose some items in the Storyteller Mode.

Because the islands you find are randomly generated, you occasionally land on an island that is deserted, no wildlife and no other edible resources to gather. Even on the islands that do have food it isn’t plentiful by any means. If you don’t manage your food resources well, Kara will starve, ending your run through the islands rather abruptly. 

I really enjoy the constant new discovery that Windbound offers and the elements of surprise of what I was going to find on each island I came across.

The cycle of land on an island, explore, hunt for resources, craft a better boat, and sail off into the sunset whenever I wanted to is a very enjoyable experience. 

Visuals and Controls

Music is subdued on most of the islands unless you come across danger. Then the music ramps up a few notches into a fairly dramatic theme. The music changes where you approach a tower or some ruins and you’ll hear the deep tones of throat singing which sounds very mysterious and surreal and fits the theme of Windbound perfectly.

There isn’t any voice acting in Windbound other than Kara who makes the odd grunting noise while climbing and if she gets very hungry she periodically cries out in pain while the side of the screen flashes red as a warning. I was particularly irritated by the constant shouting of Kara when she was hungry, the screen flashing red and the health bar nearly depleted is enough of a warning without the cry. 

The game controls are easy to pick up and Kara’s movements and climbing are very lifelike and fluid. I have absolutely no complaints about the controls.

Visually Windbound is gorgeous, providing a vibrant and bright world for Kara to roam in. The motion of the waves looks pretty realistic as does the feel of sailing the sea.  And with different island environments it’s extra enticing to explore. There are forests of lush greenery or the bright red of the autumn coloured trees to dry deserts and foggy damp swamp that disappears under a slowly descending mist as you sail up to its shores. All very different. Now and then it does have the odd framerate issue but nothing that would interrupt the experience for the player. It’s a delight to explore the environments in Windbound.

Conclusion

Personally I don’t think Windbound is a copy cat Zelda game, it has enough different elements to stand out on its own. Yes, there are similarities between the games, such as Kara having a glider but that’s really all it is.

The focus in Windbound is definitely more on the survival side, with you keeping protagonist Kara alive in this rogue-like game. The game also takes the survival genre in a new direction by providing endless replay-ability options thanks to the procedural world, and dynamic because of the modular craft you can build. As each time you play the size of your boat changes depending on what resources you can find on the islands, these dictate the type of boat you can build.

There is something quite satisfying about building your own boat and setting sail across the sea into unknown territory in Windbound. I’ve found the game to be very entertaining and a lot of fun to play.

Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up!