At Gamescom 2025, following the announcement of Crosswind's early access debut planned for sometime next year, I met with producer Philip Molodkovets to discuss the promising game openly inspired by Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Originally planned to launch as a free-to-play MMO, Crosswind has been retooled into a premium 'survival adventure game' with support for online co-op. The studio is planning between twelve and eighteen months of early access on Steam before 1.0, at which point there will also be a launch on consoles.
Philip, can you let me know what you're showing today?
It's a new build that combines some of the content features already present in our Alpha test and also some of the work-in-progress stuff we're working on. Right now, our goal is to release the game in early access in 2026.
Let's start with the base building since it's one of the most important features in the genre. We developed the base entirely using in-game tools and resources. With our building system, we try to be as flexible as possible. We have dozens, if not hundreds, of building blocks and different styles to mix and adjust to your own liking. We want players to be as creative as they want. One of my colleagues responsible for the building system says that a game's building system is good enough if you can build a Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, so we did just that.
On this base, you'll notice crafting benches, workstations, and NPCs. While you progress through Crosswind, you can recruit various NPCs. Some are specialists who will enhance your production and maybe teach some recipes, and some are just NPC workers. In time, you'll be able to automate some tasks like chopping trees, for example, mining rocks. It's not that much fun to do it, so you have workers who can do it for you. And now we are going to our dock, where we have the smallest ship docked. The naval part of the game is heavily inspired by Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which we consider to be the best pirate game ever made.
Since the Alpha test, we have done a lot of work to improve the naval part of Crosswind. Of course, you've got a crew, and they are perishables. If you get into combat, they can get hit by a cannonball and die. If you board an enemy ship, they will help you with the boarding. They move and do different tasks depending on what you do, for example, if I aim my cannon, they will run to other cannons and start shooting them. Also, we reworked the water system's physics so it feels more rocky.
This is our first map, an archipelago. We use procedural generation combined with handcrafted points of interest. The terrain and island layout are procedurally generated, so each player will have a unique world, but we use handcrafted temples, dungeons, and bandit camps placed all over the map.
How does player progression work in Crosswind?
You can craft and upgrade all types of gear: your armor, clothing, weapons, and jewelry. We also have player stats corresponding to different types of damage, protection, and health. You can increase the stats while using different gear. You can customize your character to be a long-range musketeer, for example, or perhaps you want to use a saber and pistol and get up close.
Now, we are going to use our voyage tool. We're going to travel to the Ashlands, a separate map and our fourth biome. It's currently a work in progress. In terms of how we approach biomes, we try not just to make them visually different. Each biome will have different enemies, resources, recipes, and there is a boss you have to defeat in the end. But also, we try to introduce different exploration mechanics.
The Ashlands region was covered by a volcanic eruption 100 years ago. Now, a lot of the interesting stuff there is covered by volcanic ash, so you'll have to take a pickaxe and dig through this to uncover some secrets. Another thing we're really trying to do is make the naval and land parts of the game seamless so that there are no loading screens. You can swim to an island, explore, and get back to the ship. The food system is similar to Valheim. I can eat three different types of food, and I increase my stats and HP.
Can you craft all the weapons in Crosswind, or are there some that can only be obtained by defeating certain foes?
Most of the weapons are crafted. There are also some drops from bosses, for example, from chests, but for most of the things, you just unlock the recipe, gather resources, and craft them and improve them on your base.
How does combat work in the game?
We'd like to call our combat system Soulslite. It's inspired by the Souls games, but not as challenging. We have light attacks, heavy attacks, blocks, parry, and dash. There are also some combo chains.
We did an Alpha test earlier this Summer and players really commended us for these points of interest because it's not just, you know, procedurally generated biomes. The game also contains a lot of custom-made, interesting dungeons, temples with traps and the like, so we are trying to double down on this. We're making more of this, introducing more points of interest to the game.
The final destination of today's demo is Tortuga. Back in the days when we were working on Crosswind as an MMO, we thought it would be a social habit for players, a shared area. We reworked it quite a lot, and now it's like an outpost where you can get some quests and sell goods. Surviving pirates are fighting against zombies there, so it is a besieged city.
For now, the wind does not affect your ship's movement; it's only cosmetic and affects the waves, the trees, and the bushes. We are already working on ship customization options, so the player can actually make the ship feel like a home. It is indeed a second base, essentially. Obviously, you'll use that ship's storage as a deposit, which is useful during exploration.
As I said, we're pretty inspired by Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, but we're trying to make our naval combat a bit more tactical. We added different types of ammo. You have weak spots on the ship; you have ricochet, so you can angle your ship to avoid damage.
The plan is to launch on early access, correct?
Yes, we'd like to go through early access on PC starting next year.
Do you have a rough idea of how long you plan to stay in early access before the 1.0 launch?
Yeah, for now, we predict that it will take us roughly one year to one year and a half to get to version 1.0. We want to build new content and we also want to go to consoles after early access.
Will Crosswind eventually support cross-play with consoles?
It would be cool. We're just not working on consoles that much right now because we need to focus on what we're doing, but for example, we've already added controller support to the game. So, hopefully yes to cross-play.
Speaking of the survival side of your game, is it fair to say it's not too hardcore, and perhaps more similar to Valheim in that respect?
Yes, because we are actually trying to make a survival adventure game. This is why some of the survival elements are not as hardcore. For example, you cannot die of starvation. You just have some very, very low HP. There is also no degradation of tools. You don't need to repair your tools all the time. So, some of the hardcore survival elements, we don't do them so that the player can concentrate on the adventure side.
What is the maximum number of players in a session now that Crosswind has shifted from MMO to online co-op?
On the Alpha test, we managed to support groups of three players, but now we're working to expand it to at least four, and we'll see. Obviously, we absolutely don't mind doing more. We just need to understand our technical limitations because we're transitioning from our previous plan to make an MMO to another kind of game, so we are figuring this out.
Can you talk about Tortuga itself?
Sure. The centre of the city is a small tavern. The tavern keeper is the leader of Tortuga's survivors, so we can talk to him, learn some details about the war, absolutely care for now. And also, there are various NPC characters that you can meet here and recruit. So, for example, Mary is an alchemist. If you recruit her, she'll go to your base and improve your alchemy there. Another guy here is a woodcutter; he can order your woodworkers to be more efficient. Less time, less payment. And there is another type of NPC, an officer for the player ship. Hiring an officer will improve the ship's capabilities These guys cannot die, so they are more like equipment for the ship rather than regular sailors.
You mentioned that Tortuga is under attack from zombies. Can you talk about the narrative, then? Will there be a story to follow?
Definitely. We are not a roleplaying game, but we do our best to introduce more story to our game compared to many other survival games so that the player may find purpose. Crosswind starts with you as a freelance courier transporting an artifact back to London, but your ship gets intercepted and your cargo is lost. You are attacked by Blackbeard pirates who steal your artifact, and then you're stranded on an island. You have to work your way to survive, to find and repair a ship, and gather a crew.
Eventually, it will expand into a big conflict involving empires and different factions in the game. It's still a work in progress, but even on early access, we plan the main core story to take like 60, maybe 68 hours of time. Not all of it will be doing quests, of course, as there will also be exploration and crafting to do, but I mean, there will be a good chunk of story, and it will not be complete. It will be like the story's first chapter, because we also have plans for future content on how to drive the story further. Again, don't overthink it. We are not an RPG, so we will not have all those fancy cutscenes and dialogues, but we have this narrative and we want it to be meaningful. It's not just exploring and surviving; you have to go to retrieve this artifact, and then it spins into a complicated conflict between different parties.
Can you do all this narrative part while playing with other players if you want?
Yes. Even on the Alpha test, people were able to do it. We want to fully support co-op, so essentially, if you complete something with your friend, for example, he asks you to play with him, you complete some quest, and on your side, this progress will be carried over. We want to make it work so you can play anytime alone, then connect with your friends and your progress will stay with you.
What is the status of the gamepad support?
It's not 100% in. It's not perfect, but it's fully supported in the UI. We already tested it, and actually, some of the Alpha testers played with a controller as well. There are players who play with controllers on PC, so we want to support it. And anyway, we'll have to do it for consoles, so we're trying to build it, along with mouse and keyboard, from the start.
Can you share when the next testing phase of Crosswind will open up to the public?
Honestly, I am not even sure there will be an open test before the early access release. It will depend on how the development goes. We're still processing feedback from the Alpha test and creating a roadmap towards the early access release.
Honestly, as an MMO fan, I was a bit sad when you switched the game away from that toward regular co-op survival.
Yeah, I know there are players who used to play ATLAS, for example, and they were expecting us to cater to that kind of game. The problem is, we realised during the Alpha test that in terms of amount of work and technical limitations, it would be very risky to keep pursuing this huge scope, so we decided to narrow it down a bit and make one thing right. And maybe then we can build on this once we have more experience. It's better to make a good survival game than to make a bad MMO game.
Fair enough. How many employees do you have currently at Crosswind Crew?
Right now, around 70 people are working on it.
Do you have a headquarters?
We have offices in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and Hong Kong, while the rest of the team is distributed remotely.
Anything more you can say about the early access window?
Just that it's coming in 2026, and the exact release window will be announced later, when we understand how much we need to do before going there.
Thank you for your time.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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