Windrose Crew is an independent video game studio headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The studio was previously known as Crosswind Crew and renamed in December 2025 alongside the rebranding of its debut title. Windrose is the studio's first game and their first release on Steam.
Key personnel
Philip Molodkovets is the studio's producer and primary public spokesperson. He conducted the Gamescom 2025 demo presentation and has given multiple interviews about the game's direction. Molodkovets previously wrote for Game Developer magazine about game design topics, including an article on balancing submarine gameplay in World of Warships (2020).
Publishing
The game is published by Forward Gateway, who handled the Gamescom 2025 booth and press outreach. The studio self-publishes on Steam under its own name.
Development history
The studio originally planned Windrose as a free-to-play survival MMO with PvP and shared servers. After running an alpha playtest in June 2025, they made a fundamental pivot: the game became a buy-to-play PvE co-op survival adventure. Producer Molodkovets explained at Gamescom that the MMO infrastructure was unsustainable for the team's size, and that it would be better to make a good survival game than a bad MMO.
Studio reception
Some press coverage has noted the limited public information about the studio's background. The team is small compared to the scope of the game they are building. Despite these concerns, the Steam Next Fest demo attracted over 17,000 concurrent players and 94% positive reviews, suggesting the execution speaks for itself.