Yep, we’ve got another late Gamescom 2025 interview, but considering the sheer mass of games at the show, we all should perhaps not be surprised that this well is being drawn from weeks after the fact. This time we’re getting stuff out of Crosswind, the age of piracy title from Crosswind Crew that first touted itself as a regular MMO but ultimately admitted to its survival MMO bent later. As one might anticipate, this one is about sailing the oceans, attacking and looting ships, and surviving the ravages of its Caribbean-style world, all with a PvE bent.

That brings us back onto the show floor of Cologne and another interview from WCCFTech that talked up the playable demo that was available, which showed off a little bit of everything, from personal bases to character progression to naval and on-foot combat. According to game producer Philip Molodkovets, the map in the demo is a combination of procedural generation surrounding hand-crafted POIs and multiple biomes, each with their own different enemies and resources. Naturally crafting and base building are important to the game, with most weapons made through crafting, though some can be found as boss loot.

In terms of combat, Molodkovets discussed the inspiration of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag for its naval combat (a fact that’s very apparent in the demo video) and how a ship’s crew is both a helpful ally in boarding actions as well as a resource that can be expended in naval fights, while its on-foot combat is soulslike in nature, with blocks, parries, dodges, and combo chains that players can use.

On the subject of the game’s survival aspect, it sounds like a layer as opposed to a full focus: Tools will not degrade, characters will not starve to death (they’ll just have very low HP if they don’t get snackies), and the whole thing is compared to Valheim in that aspect with a focus more on adventuring than managing needs bars.

Other details shared in the interview include the continued desire to bring early access online sometime in 2026, with a possible 12 to 18 months of early access development; a desire to bring the game to consoles but no stated development in that direction; and a multiplayer world currently capable of supporting groups of three, though Crosswind Crew is trying to increase that group size to four players. On the subject of scale, Molodkovets admits that reeling things back was a matter of technical limitations, but he’s also not against expanding that more as development continues. “It’s better to make a good survival game than to make a bad MMO game,” he points out.