Windrose has one of the most popular Steam demos of recent times, helping the co-op pirate game rack up a million wishlists

Even though we've had the excellent, well-supported Sea of Thieves to satiate us for the last few years, there seems to be a real hunger for swashbuckling, piratey adventures right now. The excitement around the seemingly inevitable Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake is high, games like Mount and Blade 2 are incorporating ship warfare into their battles, and several new pirate games are on the horizon. Windrose is one such example of the latter, and its new Steam demo has blown expectations out of the water. It's been so popular and well-received, that developer Windrose Crew has announced that it's now surpassed a million wishlists as well.

Initially known as Crosswind, which had a more MMO-style approach, Windrose has rebranded and remixed its original gameplay elements into a paid, PVE, survival-focused experience. With the option to play solo or with a few pals, this definitely feels like the right call in a time where breaking into the MMO space is challenging, to say the least. I don't even think the pirate theme would've carried it through. Now though, in its new survival game form, I have a lot more hope.

What gives me even more hope, however, is seeing just how many people have jumped into its Steam demo over the weekend to put its combat, naval warfare, survival mechanics, and base building to the test. It launched on February 17, and every day since, more and more players have set sail in Windrose as positive word-of-mouth sentiment has spread. On Sunday, February 22, the demo hit its biggest peak concurrent player count yet, topping out at over 22,000 players - a stat I'm sure many fully launched survival games would kill for.

From what I've been able to glean from SteamDb statistics, this puts it into the top 20 demos ever on Steam in terms of peak player count. Now, that doesn't take into account things like betas or playtests, I'm just strictly talking officially labeled demo slices here. While I don't think it's going to get anywhere near some of the very top demos ever recorded (I'm still mindblown over 300,000 gave MechaBreak a spin…) it's still an impressive feat.

As I write this on Monday, February 23, Windrose is currently the most-played demo on Steam and has more people enjoying it than Hades 2, Diablo 4, and FC 25. Nice.

Given all this hype, it's unsurprising to see Windrose Crew reveal that the game has now also surpassed a million wishlists on Steam. This now sees it break into the top 20 in Valve's wishlist charts, surpassing some big, highly anticipated names like Phantom Blade Zero, The Blood of Dawnwalker, and Marathon. "We're truly grateful you decided to give our game a chance," the developer says in an announcement post. "Windrose means the world to us, and we hope that, over time, it might come to mean something special to you too."

While there isn't a release window for Windrose yet, the success and the quality I'm seeing in this demo has me hopeful we'll see it this year. Even if that Black Flag remake arrives before it, I can't see it stealing this game's piratey thunder.