Revision 5

Philip Molodkovets is the producer of Windrose and the primary public spokesperson for Kraken Express (formerly Windrose Crew, formerly Crosswind Crew). He conducted the Gamescom 2025 demo presentation and has given multiple interviews about the game's direction, design pivots, and Early Access roadmap.

Role at Kraken Express

His interviews across the Gamescom 2025 press tour and subsequent industry events have shaped community understanding of the game's design philosophy.

Notable Quotes

Molodkovets has articulated the studio's design philosophy in several public statements:

• At Gamescom 2025, on the Crosswind-to-Windrose pivot: "We realised during the Alpha test that in terms of amount of work and technical limitations, it would be very risky to keep pursuing this huge scope, so we decided to narrow it down a bit and make one thing right."

• On the buy-to-play model: it would be "better to create a good survival game than a bad MMO game."

• On pre-launch pacing: "Please let us cook more" (in response to community pressure for an early release date).

Prior Work

Molodkovets previously wrote for Game Developer magazine about game design topics. A notable article he authored in 2020 addressed balancing submarine gameplay in World of Warships, exploring how naval design decisions impact player experience. This background informs his approach to Windrose's naval combat and exploration design.

Industry Presence

Studio Base

Molodkovets is the producer at Tashkent-based Kraken Express. The team numbers approximately 60 people plus occasional outsourced work, making Windrose a mid-sized indie project relative to the scope of its open-world systems.

See Also

• Kraken Express - studio profile

• Windrose Crew - previous studio name

• Crosswind - development history