Today, during the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted 2025 showcase, the studio behind the game formerly known as Crosswind has announced a rebranding to Windrose. This applies to both the game and the studio, formerly known as Crosswind Crew and now rebranded as Windrose Crew.
The change makes sense when you consider that Crosswind was the name the game had when it was still billed as a free-to-play survival MMO. Following a round of Alpha testing, though, the development team shifted the genre and business model to a regular buy-to-play (premium) survival game.
Speaking to Wccftech in an interview conducted at Gamescom 2025, producer Philip Molodkovets admitted that it was mainly due to the amount of work and technical problems that the studio would have had to overcome, adding that ultimately, it'll be better to create a good survival game than a bad MMO game.
While the scope and player count have been reduced, the game largely remains the same. Players are encouraged to become the most feared raider ever to sail the high seas, either alone or alongside a group of friends in online co-op. The game is deliberately inspired by Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (which is about to get a remake, according to the latest rumors), so it's no wonder that it focuses on delivering great sea battles (with boarding, of course) and seamless ship-to-land gameplay, with an additional emphasis on exploration, base building, and combat. There will be various ships to commandeer, from nimble cutters to all-rounder frigates and even the colossal galleons.
Players will also get to take on formidable enemies and bosses in challenging Souls-lite action and recruit a varied crew of pirates. The combat system offers access to a vast array of melee weapons and firearms, as well as parrying and dodging moves, and various types of strikes.
From a narrative standpoint, the player character is a freelance courier who has been betrayed and left stranded after a job goes wrong. What begins as a story of survival and revenge will soon draw the player into a conflict between empires, pirate clans, and dark powers looming on the horizon. Then there's the survival layer, which the Windrose Crew described as 'refined' and 'comprehensive'. In their journeys, players will explore vibrant and diverse biomes, gathering resources along the way.
There's no release date yet, but the development team targets an early access debut on PC at some point in 2026, with consoles possibly following later.
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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