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Patch Notes
May 23, 2026 at 08:00 AM
Verified the patch ledger is current through the May 18, 2026 hotfix and added internal links for bosses, NPCs, regions, enemies, weapons, and materials referenced across the chang
Patch Notes tracks every published hotfix and update to Windrose since Early Access launch on April 14, 2026. This page is a running ledger; the Roadmap page covers upcoming/planned work, while this page covers what has actually shipped. Kraken Express uses official update channels for patch notes and maintenance notices.
Date | Version | Type | Key Changes |
|---|---|---|---|
April 14, 2026 | 0.10.0.1.6 | Launch-day hotfix | Minor localization fixes; corrected Nitrado integration link; Show Server Info fields hidden by default with a reveal button. Dedicated-server access token cooldown disabled; client-side server version check added; invite-code minimum length dropped to 1 (max 32). Wishlist Now entry removed from main menu. |
April 17, 2026 | 0.10.0.2.54 | Connectivity and combat hotfix | Boss scaling retuned for 3+ player encounters; Thomas Richards target-switching and Grab-after-bombs bugs fixed. Grenadier grenades now pass through players and NPCs; Grenadier aggro leash extended. Overpenetration talent fixed (non-functional at launch). Boar Whistle altar softlock fixed. Tortuga ship-spawn crash fixed. Host timeout extended to 5 minutes. Online modes offline for ~1 hour during rollout. |
April 19, 2026 | 0.10.0.3.104 | Connectivity and QoL hotfix | Manual connectivity server picker and Direct IP connection added. Automatic save-backup system introduced with 30 rolling backups per launch. Main-menu loading fixed for usernames with non-Unicode characters. Plague Witch feather simulation, trader model and armor clipping, and HDR activation fixed. Dedicated-server process priority set to Above Normal; increased grass render distance. |
Hotfix 0.10.0.1.6 went live on launch day. The patch did not add new content. Instead, it cleared three specific friction points that had surfaced within the first hours of Early Access:
Dedicated-server connectivity: disabled the access token generation cooldown for dedicated servers, which had been causing connection failures for self-hosted and rented hosts.
Server version mismatch: the game client now checks the server version when joining and shows a UI error if the server is running an older build. Previously, outdated-server joins could fail silently.
Invite codes: the 8-character minimum length was removed. Codes are now valid at any length between 1 and 32 characters, which matches how many groups already formatted their shared room codes.
During the same launch-window update cycle, Kraken Express said more connectivity fixes were being tested and asked the community for help contacting major ISPs, because some of the studio's backend addresses appeared to be blocklisted on specific European and North American networks.
Hotfix 0.10.0.1.6 landed alongside the 48-hour commercial milestones. By April 16, Kraken Express announced Windrose had passed 500,000 copies sold since Early Access opened, the Steam review score had settled around 88 percent Very Positive, and peak concurrent players on Steam reached 69,544 on April 14, 97,981 on April 15, and 113,930 on April 16.
While the list above is just patches, Kraken Express also posted community-facing updates that shaped the launch window:
April 14, 2026: "Windrose is setting sail now!" launch announcement post
April 16, 2026: 500,000 copies sold in 48 hours milestone post; same-day acknowledgment of ISP connectivity incidents affecting co-op across EU/NA
April 17, 2026: Scheduled maintenance notice for Hotfix 0.10.0.2.54
Date | Post |
|---|---|
February 17, 2026 | Demo launched for Steam Next Fest |
February 22, 2026 | 1,000,000+ Steam wishlists milestone; Drunken Sailor remaster trailer released |
February 25, 2026 | "Raging Seas" trailer debut during an industry fan-event show |
February 26, 2026 | First Building Contest announced on Discord and Steam |
March 16, 2026 | First Building Contest winners announced |
March 23, 2026 | "1,500,000 wishlists and post-demo QoL improvements" roadmap post |
April 9, 2026 | Final launch date and pricing confirmation |
Kraken Express uses a semantic-version style prefix (for example, 0.10.0.2.54) that reads as "major.minor.patch.hotfix.build." A short hexadecimal commit suffix sometimes appears in build metadata when a patch is mined, but the public-facing version tag shown in the Steam news title is the five-segment prefix. In practice, only the five-segment prefix matters for compatibility discussions: clients on 0.10.0.2.x can typically co-op with each other, while a client on 0.10.0.1.6 cannot join a 0.10.0.2.54 server without updating.
This page only lists shipped patches and maintenance notices that affect players. Planned content belongs on Roadmap, while version-specific gameplay changes stay under each hotfix section so old balance information remains dated instead of being presented as current.
Roadmap future content direction
Early Access broader Early Access context
Launch Reception launch-week performance and press coverage
Multiplayer where the ISP and connectivity discussion lives
The launch-day hotfix shipped hours after the Early Access release. It was a narrow polish pass focused on connectivity plumbing, localization, and removing a leftover pre-launch link. No combat or boss changes landed in this build.
Access token cooldown: disabled for dedicated servers so self-hosted and rented hosts stopped dropping connections during the first join rush.
Server version check: the client now checks the server version when joining and surfaces a UI error if the server is running an older build, replacing the silent failure that occurred before the fix.
Invite-code range: the 8-character minimum was removed. Invite codes can now be any length between 1 and 32 characters.
Host server startup timeout: extended to 5 minutes so slower-starting dedicated hosts have more time before the client gives up.
Dedicated server documentation updated with difficulty-preset examples so hosts could see the exact preset strings.
Main menu: removed the leftover "Wishlist Now" link that should not have shipped post-launch.
Localization: multiple string-correction passes across supported languages.
Server info: "Show Server Info" fields in the Esc menu are now hidden by default with a reveal button, so streamers are less likely to expose dedicated-server details on camera.
Nitrado integration link: the dedicated-server hosting partner link in the in-game tool was corrected.
The first substantive post-launch patch. Online modes were taken offline for approximately one hour during rollout (12 AM PDT / 3 AM EDT / 7 AM GMT / 9 AM CEST); offline and solo play were unaffected. This is the patch that finally closed out the day-one combat and boss issues and fixed the Overpenetration talent, which had been non-functional at launch.
Further connectivity fixes and bug corrections across the backend relay and lookup services, continuing the work begun in 0.10.0.1.6.
Online-mode maintenance window during the rollout, with solo and offline play available the entire time.
Boss difficulty scaling retuned for 3+ player encounters. Multi-player scaling had felt uneven during launch week; this brings 3-, 4-, 6-, and 8-player squads back in line with the intended curve.
Thomas Richards (Coastal Jungle boss for Revenge Is Best Served Cold): fixed a target-switching bug in multiplayer and retuned the bomb-throw timing. The specific edge case where Richards would sometimes use his Grab attack immediately after throwing bombs was resolved.
Grenadier grenades now pass through players and other NPCs instead of colliding with them. Prior to the fix, a grenade could embed in a teammate and remove the intended spacing tell.
Grenadier aggro retuned: Grenadiers no longer lose targets as quickly and now correctly close distance when a player retreats. Pre-patch guides that recommended kiting past a fixed distance to break aggro are no longer reliable.
Plague Crusher tree-collision fix: the enemy no longer snags on trees during movement and correctly destroys foliage while pursuing the player. No dedicated bestiary entry for Plague Crusher has been confirmed yet.
Fixed a crash caused by ship spawns in Tortuga that could strand players at the hub.
Fixed a softlock where the Boar Whistle (the Foothills altar reward used to summon Truffle) could become permanently unobtainable if it dropped into the altar's bowl while the receiving player had a full inventory.
Object-carrying animation: fixed a visual bug when carrying large objects between stations.
Overpenetration talent (Marksman Tier 3) now functions correctly. It was non-functional from launch until this patch. Numbers tested before April 17 should be treated as invalid.
Dragonbreath Blunderbuss: fire damage values now display correctly and the intended visual effects play on hit.
Plague Halberd: visual effects now position correctly during boarding sequences.
Musket aiming: smoother camera movement while aiming, resolving the jitter players reported during the demo window and launch week.
Healing Potion: fixed an interrupt bug that could cancel the drink animation without returning the potion to the inventory.
Second substantive post-launch patch. Focused on connectivity options, a new save-backup safety net, and a set of visual and UI bug fixes. Community item-data comparisons tracked no item or recipe changes in this build, so it is largely a systems and infrastructure release.
Manual connectivity server selection. Players can now pick a specific connectivity server instead of relying on automatic selection, and can see which servers are currently reachable.
Direct IP connection option added as an alternative to the connectivity service. Useful for same-network or port-forwarded hosts when ISP-level blocking makes the relay service unreachable.
Automatic save-backup system. The client creates a save backup every time the game launches, with a rolling window of up to 30 backups. Restore instructions are provided in-game; backup files live under the user's AppData directory.
Fixed a main-menu loading issue for Windows usernames containing non-Unicode characters. Players with Cyrillic or CJK usernames were previously hard-blocked at the main menu.
Fixed a feather simulation bug on the Plague Witch model.
Corrected trader model issues and armor clipping across several sets. Multiple rigging errors had been causing equipment to position incorrectly on the body.
Resolved a rare crash tied to an item bug.
HDR activation now works correctly. It was broken at launch.
Server process priority is now automatically set to "Above Normal" on Windows dedicated hosts.
Increased grass render distance.
Connectivity servers can still appear available while being unreachable on unstable connections. The new server picker surfaces this as a false positive.
Direct IP mode does not yet surface error messages for wrong password or version mismatch. Login failures currently present as silent failures.
Hotfix 0.10.0.3.104 from April 19 remains the live build through April 26, 2026. Kraken Express did not ship any further patches in the seven days between April 19 and April 26, which kept the operations-first cadence visible across the launch month: three hotfixes in the first six days, then a deliberate pause to gather more telemetry before the first content-bearing patch.
The studio's stated reasoning for the pause is straightforward. The April 14, April 17, and April 19 hotfixes all targeted issues that surfaced within hours of launch, where the data on what was breaking was unambiguous. Content-shaping changes such as combat tuning, boss adjustments, drop rate balancing, and the first major new-content patch all benefit from a longer sample window, especially with concurrent counts holding above 100,000 across the launch fortnight. The first content-bearing patch (new items, recipes, mobs, or quests) is not expected before May 2026.
By April 26, the three issues most often cited in launch-week patch discussion had stabilized in different ways:
Issue Cluster | Status as of April 26 |
|---|---|
Connectivity and ISP blocklist failures | Largely mitigated by the manual connectivity server picker and Direct IP option from 0.10.0.3.104. Affected players still report intermittent issues on certain ISPs, but most groups can now reach a working route. |
Save corruption and Steam Cloud conflicts | Mitigated rather than fully solved. The automatic 30-backup rolling system gives every player a recovery path, and the developer recommendation against using cloud saves on multi-PC setups stands. |
Boss difficulty scaling and AI bugs | Initial corrections shipped in 0.10.0.2.54 (Thomas Richards target switching, Grenadier aggro, Overpenetration talent fix). Combat-feel critique remains a community discussion point but has not yet been addressed in a patch. |
Even without content patches, the second week saw the largest commercial milestones of the launch window. The all-time concurrent peak settled at 222,134 players on April 19, the same Sunday the one million sales milestone went live. By day ten, independent analytics tracking placed cumulative sales at roughly 1.3 million copies and gross revenue at approximately $30 million across Steam. The 24-hour peak on April 24 still sat at about 153,020, indicating the patch pause did not bleed concurrent count materially.
Those numbers feed back into patch planning. Kraken Express has framed the patch cadence as stability first, content second, and the launch-fortnight engagement curve has reinforced rather than weakened that order: most of the live audience is still inside the early- and mid-game systems where the launch hotfixes already landed, which removes some of the pressure to ship a content patch before the studio's preferred testing window closes.
First major content-and-stability patch after Early Access launch. Hotfix 0.10.0.4.268 shipped on April 30, 2026 alongside the 1.5 million sales milestone post and an accolades trailer. The patch is the largest single update of the launch month, combining a long list of stability and connectivity fixes with the first round of new building pieces, balance changes, and audio polish. Online modes were briefly offline during rollout; offline play was unaffected.
A new Force Relay Connection setting joined the connectivity menu. Toggling it routes the player through Kraken Express's relay network even when a direct peer-to-peer link could otherwise be made. Direct routing remains lower-latency in most cases; Force Relay is intended for groups whose ISPs blocklist direct addresses or whose NAT setups break peer routing entirely. Expect noticeably higher latency when the toggle is on.
Idle CPU usage was cut after a regression that made the game pin a CPU core when minimized or paused. Disk usage during gameplay was reduced, particularly on SSD installs, after a logging change. Ship performance was improved when hosting cooperative sessions, addressing complaints about frame drops on the host's machine when crew members were on board. A rare crash tied to invalid inventory slots, and a separate crash tied to ship cannons firing on Drowned enemies, were both fixed.
A connection bug that prevented players whose Windows usernames contained accented or non-Latin characters from joining hosted sessions was resolved. Two display fixes followed: accented and non-Latin characters now render correctly in keybinding labels, and the same character classes are now accepted in player and ship names.
The biggest content beat of the patch is on the building side. Roughly 40 wall-triangle pieces were added across the building sets, each cut to the specific roof angles already in use (13, 26, 45, and 64 degrees). Three new floor-triangle pieces fill out the same roof angles. Decorative Canopies now count as roofs for the purposes of crafting-station placement requirements, which removes a common complaint about open-air kitchens not registering as covered spaces.
Crafting costs (the building-piece recipes themselves, not vendor prices) were trimmed across all building sets, lowering the wood and plant-fiber pressure on early base building. Hardwood drop rate from Divi-Divi tree harvesting in the Foothills was raised by twenty percent. Tainted Bile drop rates from late-game enemies were also improved. Four new Seedbed variations entered the planting pool, with growth-stage and harvest sound and visual effects added to all crops.
Boar second-strike combos got a clearer telegraph and longer reach, so players can read the wind-up and choose to dodge or commit a counter rather than mistiming the trade. Alpha Wolf grapple now properly applies a bleed window only on the leap, not throughout the grapple, and bleed immunity was added during the grapple animation itself. The Outnumbered talent visual now displays correctly. Plague Crusher tree-collision navigation was tightened in the prior patch and remains stable.
Several specific weapon and item bugs were resolved. A jewelry Special Attack damage bonus that was applying inconsistently was corrected. Rosalinda Mercer's Alchemist perk was fixed: purple elixir crafts at her station now correctly proc additional purple elixir, where they had been proccing blue elixir. Healing Potion drink animations interrupt and recover correctly. Drowner ranged-attack audio cues now play at the right time, giving an audible read on incoming spit attacks.
The Disassembly station no longer lists currently-equipped items in its take-apart menu, removing the easy mistake of dismantling worn armor. Fast-travel markers now sit on the top map layer instead of being obscured by terrain symbols. The O and L keys can be remapped without breaking game shortcuts. Arrow-key camera control was repaired. Mouse-inversion no longer breaks the ship battery interface. Ranged-weapon mouse sensitivity now matches the configured value. The shared-quest-progress label rendered correctly. Two-handed firearms can now be remapped to alternate slots, and the action remap surface was expanded to cover more verbs. The Hide UI option now hides only the HUD, leaving menus visible. A widescreen-safe-zone setting was added for ultrawide users. Gamepad cursor settings were adjusted to feel less twitchy.
The patch also addressed structural and decorative bugs around dig-and-shovel tools. Players who dig under Divi-Divi stumps or swamp trees no longer levitate. The shovel flatten tool baseline was reset so terrain shaping behaves consistently across surfaces. Building integrity now recalculates correctly when a support piece is destroyed, fixing pop-in and sudden collapse cases. Several decoration collision fixes followed: the Crocodile sculpture sits flush, 26-degree Mahogany stairs no longer clip the floor below, the 26-degree Jungle Survivor roof corner snap was fixed, 26 and 45-degree railings collide correctly, square pillar collision was corrected, and the pier pillar visual offset was repaired. The Signal Fire is now walkable and shares its Comfort buff with adjacent rooms; pier decorations now contribute Comfort. An indestructible-block bug was fixed.
Bonfire ambient music was extended by three minutes and the ship-travel ambient track was extended by forty seconds, so long sessions cycle through more variety before repeating. Shanty cycling no longer repeats the same track back-to-back. F-camera audio fixes restored the crew bark layer when the camera is detached. Backpack removal now properly unequips two-handed weapons that the backpack was anchoring. Sailor and shroud clothing clipping fixes cleaned up several edge cases on humanoid models. The Wolf Head Trophy got a new model and texture. Fireplace visuals, clay wall textures, smelter visuals, and bean sapling visuals were all updated. Old World and Lost Tribe decorative beam visibility was corrected.
Boarding completion no longer hangs when the Unsinkable trait is active. The Jim Godart questline can no longer accidentally duplicate. Leaving a sea quest mid-fight no longer throws a fatal error. The Forgotten Relics quest no longer surfaces excess markers. The Iron Caverns Foothills tooltip now points at the correct location. A low-graphics-settings weapon visual bug was fixed. Grass removal on planting works correctly, and grass under piers and wharves no longer ghosts through the structure.
Save-system overhaul. Hotfix 0.10.0.5.120 shipped on May 4, 2026 with a single major focus: replace the rolling save-backup system added in 0.10.0.3.104 with a more reliable storage and recovery layer designed for Steam Cloud. The patch is small in surface area but consequential for any player who lost progress to a corrupted save during the launch month.
The new system creates an automatic save backup every ten minutes of active gameplay and on quit-to-desktop. Backups carry forward the thirty-rolling-backup ceiling from 0.10.0.3.104, so no player loses backups in the migration. Save files now use a structure compatible with Steam Cloud sync, reducing the multi-PC corruption that had been the dominant complaint through April.
Broken save files no longer block the load list. If the most recent save fails a startup integrity check, a Data Recovery interface appears with two options: quit to desktop and let Steam Cloud resync from another machine, or recover from the most recent valid backup. A Save Migration System silently upgrades any save written before 0.10.0.5.120; in most cases the migration is invisible. When a pre-migration save is corrupted beyond automatic recovery, a Migration Conflict notification appears with an explicit delete prompt.
Other small adjustments shipped alongside the save work. The D-pad Left mapping for Take All was corrected. The Wolf Head item icon was updated to match the in-world model. Game settings reset to defaults on first launch after the patch; players who had customized control bindings, audio mixes, or graphics presets should re-apply them.
Characters created on a build older than 0.10.0.4 cannot be deleted at the moment because of a Steam Cloud sync edge case. Kraken Express has flagged the issue and a follow-up patch is expected. Players who hit the case can still play those characters; they just cannot be removed from the character list yet.
Windrose Support launched in beta on April 28, 2026 as the official feedback platform for bug reports, suggestions, and feature voting. The platform is replacing the studio's Discord help server as the primary support channel during the second half of Early Access; Discord support will remain available during the transition but will retire over time. Patch-related bug reports filed there feed directly into the team's backlog. The platform is English-only at launch.
Between Hotfix 0.10.0.5.120 on May 4, 2026 and May 14, 2026, Kraken Express did not ship a new client patch. The most visible event in that window is the May 14 2,000,000-copies-sold milestone post, which is not a patch but is the primary reason the wiki tracks the period. The studio confirmed in the milestone post that full production has begun on the next major content update and that smaller fixes will continue to ship between now and that drop.
Two practical reading notes apply. First, the live build remains 0.10.0.5.120; players running an older save file should still expect the silent Save Migration System from that hotfix to handle the upgrade. Second, the studio's stated patch cadence has not changed: stability, save-system, and connectivity hotfixes ship as needed, while content-bearing patches wait for the named Ashlands beat. See Roadmap for the broader content-direction framing.
April 14, 2026: Early Access launch (Hotfix 0.10.0.1.6 same day)
April 16, 2026: 500,000 copies sold in 48 hours
April 17, 2026: Hotfix 0.10.0.2.54 (connectivity and combat)
April 19, 2026: 1,000,000 copies sold; Hotfix 0.10.0.3.104 (connectivity and QoL)
April 19, 2026: All-time concurrent peak of 222,134 players on Steam
April 30, 2026: 1,500,000 copies sold; Hotfix 0.10.0.4.268 (first major stability + building drop)
May 4, 2026: Hotfix 0.10.0.5.120 (save-system overhaul, Steam Cloud rework)
May 14, 2026: 2,000,000 copies sold; full production on next major update
May 18, 2026: Hotfix 0.10.0.6 (disk-write reduction, ship artillery and battery fixes, input timing polish)
First post-2,000,000-sales hotfix. Hotfix 0.10.0.6 is a small, stability-and-quality patch. It does not add new content; instead, it reduces disk wear from active gameplay, fixes a cluster of ship artillery and battery bugs that had been particularly visible during contested boardings, and tightens the timing on action panel inputs. The live build moves from 0.10.0.5.120 to 0.10.0.6.
Reduced overall disk space usage and optimized disk writes during gameplay. This continues the optimization line from Hotfix 0.10.0.4.268; ongoing roaming-write activity is lower than in any previous build.
Slightly improved performance during boarding sequences.
Slightly improved performance while using ship artillery.
Fixed a bug that could occasionally cause ship artillery aiming to get stuck. Players who experienced a frozen aim reticle while firing cannons should no longer hit the case.
Fixed a bug where ship aiming could get stuck when interacting with a battery while blocking. The block input no longer locks the battery aim state.
Fixed a bug that caused the Unstuck command to become unavailable while controlling a ship battery. Unstuck can now be invoked from a battery seat as expected.
Fixed a crash that could occasionally occur when unequipping items from a ship.
The 0.10.0.5.120 patch notes called out a known issue where characters created on a build older than 0.10.0.4 could not be deleted from the character list because of a Steam Cloud sync edge case. Hotfix 0.10.0.6 resolves that case: old worlds and characters can now be deleted correctly.
Player and ship action panels now execute actions when a button is pressed instead of when it is released. This applies to both the on-foot action wheel and the helm and battery action panels. Players who previously held an action button to preview options will notice the action commit instantly on press.
Attack and block animation transitions were slightly adjusted after equipping weapons so the transition from the equip animation into a first swing or block reads smoother.
Added a SaveWorkflow.md file to the Dedicated Server root folder. Self-hosting administrators will find a written description of how the server-side save and backup flow operates alongside the existing server files.
No content was added in this patch. There are no new building pieces, no new recipes, no new weapons, and no balance changes to weapons, talents, or food. The patch is targeted at stability for naval combat (the artillery and battery fixes), responsiveness for input (the press-instead-of-release change), and long-term storage health for SSD users (continued disk-write optimization). Save files written under 0.10.0.5.120 carry forward without migration; the rolling backup ceiling and the automatic ten-minute backup cadence from 0.10.0.5.120 remain in place.
