Is it just me, or is the survival-crafting genre having something of a golden age these last few years? We’ve had countless titles—including Palworld, Enshrouded, and Runescape Dragonwilds—as standout entries.
But while this new title clearly draws inspiration from many others, it feels most like a satisfying mixture of Minecraft and Valheim, with enough unique twists to make it feel brand-new. I never played Enshrouded, to this day, but I can safely say that the combat in Palworld—and most modern crafting-survival games—feels a little too easy for the most part.
So color me surprised when I had some trouble with Everwind, a new title by developers Enjoy Studio S. A. and publishers Bohemia Interactive. Here’s how it all went.
I spawned into the world, which I aptly named “the world” given how I’m such a creative genius, and dove straight into ignoring all the tutorial messages, because who has time for that? I cut through a few enemies and made my way down a tower, finally emerging into the world.
I’d taken a slight beating, but I was in pretty good shape. Until the skeletons outside saw me. I guess they didn’t take kindly to me slaying all their comrades inside. What felt like a never-ending horde of them attacked me, though it was only really about four of them. These things are tough; they don’t go down easy, and they seem to hit harder than I do.
Thankfully, I survived this encounter and limped my way over to an archery range to take stock and hopefully cook some food. Some animals gave up their pixels so I could get meat, and I cooked up some eggs I found.
With this, I headed out into the water to find a… flying ship?
Yes, it is as cool as it sounds. It’s a literal flying ship. And I quickly figured out how to fly it, and then set off for a curious question mark that had appeared on my screen, up above, on a floating island. Yeah, did I mention this game has flying ships, challenging combat, and floating islands?
Uh oh… I can see a lot of my future free time getting sucked into this title.
It took a long, long time to get to the island. It turns out ships aren’t all that good at flying upwards, who knew? I reached my destination, quickly bested two more skeletons, and then opened the door to a tower to find something called a Skeleton Champion. I’ll admit it, I panicked. I even ran when I realized I was outmatched. It’s at this point that flying ships get a little less cool.
You see, most of the ship is underwater when it’s in the water, so you can actually get on the thing. But when you’ve parked your flying ship on land, well, there’s no easy way back up. Of course, there’s a way to teleport back to your ship, but remember, I’ve been ignoring the tutorial messages, so I’ve no idea how to do that.
So, in the end, the only option was to fight. This thing tracked me like a bloodhound on steroids, and short of jumping off the island and to my death, I couldn’t shake it. So, fight I did, and after my sword broke, I just went on punching it in the face. Very satisfying, but inevitably, this led to my untimely death.
Well, I’m hooked. Maybe, backed up by a few friends, I’ll pay Mister Skeleton Champion another visit in the future, but for now, I think I’ve had quite enough.
If you’d like to prove you’re a better gamer than me and cut down the Skeleton Champion with a wooden sword, all while wearing an old wooden cutting board and some rope as “armor,” please, be my guest, and share your story in the comments. You can grab the demo on Steam, and it’s available this week only, until Oct 20. Maybe it becomes available again in future, but if I were you, I wouldn’t take that chance. It really is a must-play.
