This is probably the most annoying element, because you need to kill certain creatures to get certain recipes. But you’ll also want to explore just to find animals and new resources, because that unlocks the recipes you’ll need to make bigger bags, better boats, and crucial exploration tools like axes and bows. You can’t leave each chapter without unlocking three towers, so naturally finding all of the islands - because the game gradually gets larger from chapter to chapter, with more procedurally generated islands - is a core part.

Kara’s stamina doesn’t last long, at first, and it’s easy to quickly deplete it by sprinting too much. Once you unlock the ability to sail, you unlock the ability to basically forage from one island to another - which you’ll need, because food is an ever pressing concern. The meat and potatoes of Kara’s journey is really in three parts. You start out with a small canoe, which can be upgraded to a larger boat made of different materials. With that, Kara’s sailing journey begins. The game doesn’t provide any waypoints or general bearings, but before long you’ll find a Zelda-esque tower, which ends up granting you the ethereal equivalent of an oar that never breaks. You play as Kara, washed up on a small island following a vicious storm.

What that means in practice is that it’s a game without much handholding. A product of the Satellite Reign creators 5 Lives Studios, Windbound is basically dripping in Zelda influences, most prominently Windwaker but also with a strong touch of design ethos from Breath of the Wild. Windbound has been on my radar since it launched, and the visuals make it pretty clear why. Windbound is the kind of game that sounds a delight on paper, but in practice leaves you feeling lost at sea.

Windbound walkthrough