The demo's promising, but the game is a weak entrant into the survival/exploration space at present imo.

Years ago, Valheim entered the genre and basically set the bar -- and as far as I've seen few others have come close since to mimicking the same immersion/feeling as it managed. It should be so stupidly easy for a game dev to play valheim / look at valheim mods, and say "ok, that's the floor we need to meet in terms of mechs and whatnot, and we gotta move forward from there!".

Easy example: Windrose is often billed/marketed as an exploration game. And they did proc gen maps, which is great for exploration mechs as it keeps the terrain 'new' and prevents easy google-scumming to circumvent 'exploration' gameplay. If you look at valheim on this front, you'll note that a lot of players play without the map even, as it's more immersive for exploration to have to make your own landmarks / navigation methods (one of the most popular mods makes it so the minimap is only 'visible' when you go to your base/a specific buildable station).

Instead of going that route and leaning in to the sorts of things that the literal fanbase of this genre has been modding in to games of this sort for YEARs, Windrose provides you with the minimap, and marks every POI nearby for you to ensure you don't just randomly stumble across new things -- I mean, who'd want that sense of discovery/exploration in an exploration game anyhow, right? Their markers even have a counter for how many 'chests' are available at the POI, and how many you've found, so that you can be sure to fully complete the location. It's stupid.

Still, it looks fairly good, base mechs for combat are ok. So I'm leaving it on my wishlist for now, but if it doesn't change a bunch before EA/release, it'll likely sputter and poof.