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11 Windrose Crew was the second name of the independent video game studio behind Windrose. The studio was originally named Crosswind Crew, renamed to Windrose Crew in December 2025, and then renamed a second time to Kraken Express on April 14, 2026 coinciding with the Early Access launch. The studio is headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
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33 This article covers the studio's Windrose Crew naming period (December 4, 2025 to April 14, 2026). For information on the current studio name, see the Kraken Express article. For the earliest studio history, see the Crosswind article.
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55 First Rename (December 4, 2025)
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77 The studio changed its name from Crosswind Crew to Windrose Crew during the December 2025 gameplay showcase broadcast on December 4, 2025. The rename coincided with the game's rebrand from Crosswind to Windrose. The old "Crosswind" name had become associated with the scrapped MMO design, and the new "Windrose" identity reflected the PvE co-op survival direction adopted after the August 2025 pivot.
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99 Key Personnel
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1111 Philip Molodkovets served as the studio's producer and primary public spokesperson under both the Crosswind Crew and Windrose Crew names. He conducted the Gamescom 2025 demo presentation and has given multiple interviews about the game's direction. Molodkovets previously wrote for a gaming magazine about game design topics, including an article on balancing submarine gameplay in World of Warships (2020).
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1414 Publishing Under Windrose Crew
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1616 During the Windrose Crew period, the game was published by Forward Gateway, a legal entity incorporated in the Republic of Uzbekistan that handled the Gamescom 2025 booth and press outreach. Forward Gateway no longer appears as publisher at the April 2026 Early Access launch, having been replaced by Kraken Express (self-publishing) alongside Pocketpair Publishing (Japan) as co-publisher.
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1818  Fan Fest (February 25, 2026)
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2020 On February 25, 2026, Windrose premiered a "Raging Seas" trailer at Fan Fest, previewing Early Access content including Tortuga, additional ships, weapons, armor, building pieces, and new enemies. The appearance marked the studio's growing presence in major gaming shows alongside earlier appearances at Gamescom 2025 and the PC Gaming Show.
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2222 Steam Next Fest Demo
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2424 Under the Windrose Crew name, the studio released a free demo during Steam Next Fest in February 2026. The demo attracted over 22,000 peak concurrent players (one of the most-played demos on Steam) and accumulated over 5,400 reviews at 92 percent positive. The game surpassed 1 million wishlists on February 23, 2026 and reached 1.5 million wishlists before the April launch.
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2626 Studio Reception
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2828 Some press coverage noted the limited public information about the studio's background during the Windrose Crew period. The team was described as small compared to the scope of the game they were building. Despite these concerns, the demo achieved overwhelming community approval, with the studio describing the response as "humbling," posting: "We couldn't even have imagined this." They asked fans for patience with the release date, requesting that people "let us cook more" as they worked to deliver the best possible Early Access launch.
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3030 Second Rename (April 14, 2026)
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3232 Alongside the April 14, 2026 Early Access launch, the studio renamed itself to Kraken Express. The developers explained the rename simply: "It just sounds cooler, otherwise, that's still us." At the same time, Pocketpair Publishing joined as co-publisher. For the studio's current status, organizational details, and active work, see the Kraken Express article.
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3434 Not the In-Game Crew System
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3636 This article covers the development studio named Windrose Crew (active December 4, 2025 through April 14, 2026, renamed to Kraken Express). If you arrived here looking for the in-game ship crew, base workers, or recruitment mechanics, the following articles are what you want:
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3838 In-game NPC crew overview: NPC Crew. Full breakdown of ship crew, base workers, Doctor Galen, merchants, contractors, and the Rescuing the Crew quest chain.Hiring base workers at Tortuga: Recruitment Vendor. The NPC vendor that sells hireable specialists (Jasper Crow, Rosalinda Merca, Black Axel, Farming Contractor) paid in gold coins and piastres.Recruit bonuses explained: each hired worker applies a passive percentage bonus to their assigned station. Alchemy recruits give a 33 percent chance of extra-output crafts; workbench recruits give a chance to craft without consuming materials. See the NPC Crew article for the full confirmed roster and effects.Boarding party combat: the ship crew rescued in the main story operates your combat vessel and fights alongside you during Boarding actions. See NPC Crew and Naval Combat for gear and upgrade details.
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4040 Studio Commentary on In-Game Crew Design
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4242 The studio's choice to call itself Windrose Crew, rather than Windrose Studios or Windrose Games, was not accidental. Public-facing posts from the Windrose Crew period consistently framed the in-game crew system as one of the studio's core pillars, and the name reinforced that identity.
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4444 During the Windrose Crew period, Crosswind Devblog #2 explicitly described "wanderers, merchants, quest-givers, or would-be crewmates" as "the first step toward a broader crew system" that would eventually "forge connections between land-based NPCs and ship roles." This is the design intent behind the split between base workers (hired at the Recruitment Vendor) and ship crew (rescued in the main story), with the roadmap calling for the two systems to merge into a unified framework during Early Access.
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4646 The launch-build gameplay reflects that intent in miniature. Hired base workers apply passive percentage bonuses (30 percent refund chance on salvage, 33 percent extra-craft chance on alchemy, free-material chance on workbench crafts, double clay bottle output), while the ship crew runs the cannons, reloads, sings sea shanties, and fights boarding actions. Both systems charge meaningful fees (500 piastres per base worker; a main-quest investment for the ship crew), and both are balanced around the studio's stated design goal of making human NPCs the backbone of the economy and combat layers.
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4848 Community Shorthand: "Crew" for Either Meaning
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5050 Be aware that the community uses "crew" as shorthand for all three meanings: the studio, the ship crew, and hired base workers. In forum posts and Discord chatter, "the Windrose Crew" still usually refers to the developers (even after the April 14 rename), while "my crew" refers to in-game companions. When browsing patch notes or devblogs written during the Windrose Crew naming period, any reference to "crew improvements" or "crew systems" is the in-game crew, not the development team.