![]() Your primary goal is to find all those shells, then, but pursuing that goal will necessarily require you to search every island along the way for goods that you urgently need. If it runs out, her health bar starts to go instead, possibly resulting in death. Kara has a stamina gauge that governs her ability to run and do other actions, but its cap is constantly being eroded away as she goes longer without food. This unpredictability proves to be the source of the most enjoyable sort of tension that Windbound has to offer, and is sure to keep you hooked at least for a few hours. ![]() ![]() Islands are randomly generated and dotted around the map, and the resources that they hold are similarly unpredictable. Each chapter sees Kara and her boat dropped into a big, circular cutout of the ocean, and her task is to sail between the islands to find three magical shells that unlock a gate (and a random upgrade) so she can further progress. The typical flow of a session of Windbound consists of five chapters that are nearly indistinguishable from each other. Kara’s adventure notably echoes Link’s in some ways, then, but her primary struggle is always against nature itself and the uncaring, unfair way that it treats its inhabitants. Even so, the similarities mostly stop there, as the underlying mechanics don’t feature any puzzle-solving and combat is kept to a simplistic minimum. Elements like exploring the stony ruins of a technologically-advanced ancient civilization or the meandering and low-key sense of open-ended exploration certainly call to mind Nintendo’s seminal open-world adventure. Windbound is a roguelite survival game at first glance, in the sense that your moment-to-moment action consists of a continuous search for food and materials for crafting, but the influence of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is unmistakable. Still, it nonetheless offers a nice backdrop for the mostly chill gameplay and helps to give it some context. It’s all interesting enough in its own right, but as you’d probably expect, the narrative isn’t exactly the central focus here. Kara’s goal is, of course, to find her way back home, but there’s a bigger narrative at play which is slowly unwound by encountering a series of mysterious magical shrines dotted about the islands of the strange waters she's been cast into.īroadly speaking, this story is about the rise and fall of an ancient civilization, while offering more backstory on the Kraken you encountered. ![]() The story of Windbound follows Kara, a silent protagonist who finds herself shipwrecked and alone after a dangerous encounter with a massive Kraken-like creature. All comparisons aside, Windbound implements its survival mechanics well enough to stand on its own, and though it isn’t exactly a game that demands you rush out to buy it immediately, it’s still an enjoyable experience that’s worth looking into. Windbound – the newest release from 5 Lives Games – is the latest entrant in this long lineage of survival games, then, with the main hook here being the obvious influence from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The survival genre has been around for decades, but it seems that the rising prominence of indie game development over the last decade has led to survival games experiencing something of a renaissance, much like the Metroidvania and roguelike genres.
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