Windrose in coop: how to play with your friends, progression and tips 2026

Released on April 14, 2026 in Early Access on Steam and the Epic Games Store, Windrose is a pirate survival-adventure game developed by Kraken Express. The pitch: a procedural open world in the age of piracy, with crafting, base building, soulslike combat, and navigation. All playable solo or in co-op for up to 8 players — although the studio recommends sticking to 4 for it to run smoothly.

29.99€ for the base game (26.99€ with the launch promo until April 21), or 39.99€ for the Supporter Bundle which adds the soundtrack and sea shanties recorded by Seán Dagher. 1.5 million wishlists on Steam before the launch. Needless to say, the thing has generated a lot of anticipation.

But the real question that everyone is asking: how does the coop mode work? And above all, is it well done or are we going to struggle for three hours before managing to play together? We dissect everything.

Nothing too complicated here, but you still need to know what to do. When you create or load a backup, the game gives you a invitation code to share with your buddies. They enter it in the multiplayer menu and boom, they land in your world. You can also go through the Steam friends list — right-click on the username, "invite to play," and you're all set.

Small important detail: you can add a password on your session. Convenient if you don't want a random to come across it.

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And there, we come to the big black spot of the current system. The progress is linked to the host backup. It means that if your buddy who is hosting disconnects, the session drops. You can't continue on his save without him. It's the same principle as Valheim in its early days — practical for organized sessions, less so for spontaneous gaming.

The good news: tools like SaveSync already exists to synchronize backups between players. So, anyone in the crew can host. Not official, but it works.

Classic question when playing a survival game in multiplayer: do I lose everything if I join another game? Short answer: your character is persistent . Your equipment, your skills, your stats — all of that follows you from one world to another. It's not like some games where you start over from scratch every session.

For resources, it's rather well thought out. The chests in the world give loot. individual — each player opens the same chest and retrieves their own items. No "first come, first served" that spoils the atmosphere. On the other hand, the resources collected (wood, stone, ore) are shared in the world. If your buddy cuts down all the trees on an island, well... there are no more trees.

There are no classes as such in Windrose. You specialize via a talent system that you unlock with combat XP and activities. The idea is that everyone can build a different build according to their style.

• Tank/frontline — a lot of life, stagger damage to control enemy groups. You take the hits while others attack.
• DPS status — specialized in effects like bleeding for sustained damage. Less flashy but devastatingly effective on bosses.
• Versatile explorer — mix of damage and survival. The jack-of-all-trades who can do everything without excelling anywhere.

Tip: invest in stamina. Seriously. Stamina in Windrose is the lifeblood of the war - it is used for attacking, dodging, parrying. A character with 0 stamina is a dead character.

Windrose's combat is clearly inspired by Dark Souls — but in a slightly more accessible version, what the studio calls "soulslite". You have your mechanics of parade, dodge, stamina and poise management (the enemy's stagger bar). When you break an enemy's poise, they fall and you can smash them. Parrying is super profitable for this - each parry drains 1 poise point, faster than a regular attack.

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In coop, it completely changes the dynamics. A player can tank the hits and attract aggro while the others hit from behind. On bosses, it's almost essential - some are really punishing solo. And a nice little bonus: if you die, enemies do not regenerate their life. Your buddy can finish the job while you respawn.

The arsenal is varied: sabers, rapiers, halberds, two-handed swords for close combat, pistols and muskets for long range. Firearms have limited ammunition, so you can't play full sniper. Always need a plan B for close combat.

A cool thing about co-op: nothing forces you to stay together. One player can rush a boss solo while the other explores a nearby island. The game doesn't require you to stay grouped together all the time.

You start with a small dinghy, but as you progress in the game, you recover real ships - a ketch, a brig, a frigate. And that's where the coop makes sense. Because piloting a ship alone is doable. But when you have to manage the helm, the port and starboard cannons, and repairs in the middle of a naval battle... it becomes a real mess.

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In coop, each player can take a position on the ship. One at the helm, one on the cannons, one managing repairs when the hull takes a beating. It's one of the most requested features during the Steam Next Fest demo, and Kraken Express delivered it at launch. The result is frankly satisfying — it provides gameplay moments we hadn't really experienced since Sea of Thieves, but with much more advanced land combat.

Attention, however: waves and the day/night cycle impact naval battles. In rough seas, your cannon shots can completely miss. You have to time your salvos with the roll. It adds a welcome layer of skill.

On the construction side, we are clearly in the lineage of Valheim. You collect wood, stone, iron, and build your base piece by piece. Several construction styles available — from makeshift camp to elaborate fort to pirate manor. Bases are shared among all players in the session.

The interesting twist: you can recruit NPCs to automate harvesting and production in your base. One of your guys cuts wood, another mines ore. This frees up time for exploration and combat, especially at the beginning of the game when resource grinding is a bit long.

A tip for the coop: build Fast Travel Bells on each island you visit. It's the teleportation system in the game and in multiplayer it's essential. Without it, you spend half of your session navigating to find your friends instead of playing together.

Good news: unlike many survival games in Early Access, Windrose already offers dedicated servers for launch . It's a game-changer compared to the classic player-hosted. With a dedicated server, your world stays online even when you sleep. Your buddies can connect anytime, farm resources, advance the base. Like a real MMO server, but private.

The official setup guide is available at playwindrose.com You need a dedicated machine or a VPS with a lot of RAM - 32 GB minimum if you want it to run well with 4+ players. Hence the interest in having a good DDR5 kit even for the server.

The concrete benefits:

• Persistent world — no need for the host to be connected
• Best performance — less lag than in player-hosted, especially in late-game with large bases
• More players — the game supports up to 8 players on a dedicated server (although 4 remains optimal)

Windrose runs on Unreal Engine and it's not the lightest game in the world. Here's what Kraken Express recommends:

• Minimum — i7-8700K / Ryzen 7 2700X, GTX 1080 Ti / RX 6800, 16GB RAM, SSD
• Recommended — i7-10700 / Ryzen 7 5800X, RTX 3080 / RX 6800 XT, 32 GB RAM, SSD

If you host a game while playing - and this is the default case in co-op without a dedicated server - the 32 GB of RAM become almost mandatory. The game itself specifies this in its system notes. A DDR5 kit like the Kingston FURY Beast 32GB 6000 MT/s does the job well, and it is compatible with XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO for both Intel and AMD configurations.

The game supports DLSS and FSR to gain FPS. If you have an RTX, activate DLSS in Quality — the gain is significant without any obvious visual loss.

Not for the moment. Co-op only works between players on the same platform. Kraken Express has not yet announced crossplay, but it is a feature often requested on the official Discord.

No. Windrose is online co-op only. Each player needs their own PC and their own copy of the game.

If its configuration is above the minimum (GTX 1080 Ti, 16 GB RAM), it should work. The game is still in Early Access so optimizations will continue. But be careful with large bases in late-game — that's where modest PCs suffer the most.

Kraken Express announces 50 to 70 hours for the main quest , excluding exploration and building. The studio plans 1.5 to 2.5 years of Early Access with 50% more content for version 1.0 — new biomes, bosses, enemies, ships.

No. The game is 100% PvE. PvP was removed during development to focus on the co-op and solo experience. You can't attack other players.