Windbound Update #1

Hi all,
Thanks so much for playing Windbound, and also for taking the time to give us your feedback. We can’t address every piece of feedback in a single update, but please know that we are working through it all and we will be providing more updates (and additional features and content) in the future. But right now here’s what’s changed in our first update on PC (with consoles to follow).

Game Stability
We’ve addressed a bunch of issues with this update, but we’d like to ask for your help in tracking down any remaining crashes. We really want to resolve these issues as quickly as we can, so what would help us enormously is that if you do experience a crash after this update you send us your log and crash dump files. Email them to brent (at) 5livesstudios (dot) com

The log is located here:
C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\LocalLow\5 Lives Studios\Windbound\player.log
And if there’s a crash dump it’s located here:
C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Temp\5 Lives Studios\Windbound\Crashes

Saving progression
The next biggest and most consistent theme we see in your feedback is that you want the game to save your progression automatically.

We’ve added auto-saving as you acquire each Nautilus key.
We’ve also added an additional auto-save as you use the final Nautilus key before Kara enters The Crossing.
We already auto-saved when you successfully emerge from The Crossing and begin the next chapter, and this remains the case.

Game Difficulty
Storyteller vs Survivalist
The feedback we’ve got is that parts of Storyteller felt too punishing, and it wasn’t clear what the difference was between Survivalist and Storyteller.

- We’ve renamed Storyteller to Adventurer mode, and updated the description of the difficulty modes to make the difference between the two modes clearer. This is in English first, but localised text will follow.

Adventurer Mode
- This is now the default mode when you start a new game.
- Full inventory is retained upon death.
- Boat is retained upon death, go through the portal and you’ll be reunited with it.
- Chapter progress is retained upon death, no more going back to Chapter 1.
- Combat difficulty is easier than in Survivalist Mode.

Survivalist Mode
- This is the classic Roguelike mode.
- Only items in "Held" inventory slots are retained upon death
- Boat is lost upon death.
- Return to Chapter 1 upon death.
- Standard combat difficulty.

Hunger
Some of you have told us that food goes bad too quickly and makes the game too punishing. So we’ve made a few changes to how quickly different types of food go bad. These should make a big difference for players who have been struggling managing their food and hunger levels.

- Berries and mushrooms will last for 40 minutes instead of 30.
- All raw meat will last for 30 minutes instead of 20.
- All cooked meat will last for 50 minutes instead of 30.

Additionally there’s been some confusion around the “Food has degraded” pop-up. Previously it popped-up as food got 30% of the way to rotting, and some users interpreted this as the food having gone bad already. So we’ve changed it to only appear one time just before food goes off and then a final “Food has gone bad” pop-up appears.

Stamina
Stamina is a key resource for Kara, and it perhaps recharged a little too slowly.

- So we’ve increased the backup stamina recharge rate by 25%.
- Additionally we’ve reduced time to recover from dodging when you have no stamina by 50%, so Kara should be able to get moving again in combat much quicker.

Storage/Inventory
Crafting containers for your boat is a great way of increasing the amount of items you can store, and they’re perfect for holding items you don’t need to consume all the time. However the capacity of some containers was a little low. So we’ve adjusted the capacity of containers as follows:

- Grass Container now has 5 slots, up from 3.
- Bamboo Container now has 9 slots, up from 5.
- Wood Container now has 12 slots, up from 7.

Additional Bug Fixes

- Fixed an intermittent crash in shadow culling.
- There was a bug in the Gameplay Options menu that if you reset to default options it reverted difficulty to Survivalist as well. This was obviously not a good experience for those of you who chose to play in Storyteller mode. This has now been fixed.
- The “Food has degraded” prompts were intended as regular warnings that the food is slowly going bad, but many players seem to think the first warning out of three is actually telling them that the food has already gone bad. So we've reduced the frequency of the prompts so it only starts to warn the player about food degrading when it gets down to 33%. And we’ll be making the phrasing clearer pending localisation.
- Players may have been prevented from climbing some towers when large rock formations were generated too close, blocking the route. These rock formations are now being created further away from towers to ensure player progress is not blocked.
- At times coral was popping in too close to the player and when sailing at speed that didn’t give a fair chance at avoiding it, this has been fixed and coral is now visible from a further distance.
- Fixed an issue where Koji Berries were sometimes not appearing in player inventory.
- Fixed the Ancestors outfit not appearing wet after Kara has been in water.
- Corrected a number of Achievement descriptions.
- Fixed a bug with the Pro Skater achievement where sometimes it would not correctly trigger despite the boat catching air for longer than 2 seconds.
- Removed an unintentional feature where F11 would toggle the UI off/on. Players accidentally did this and had no idea how to bring it back.
- Fixed an issue where player settings were not always being properly being applied.
- After finishing the game players can now continue in the same slot from Chapter 1 with all their blessings in a New Game+ mode. This mode does not replay the intro cut-scene.
- Fixed an issue where creature navigation meshes were not properly cleared between Chapters potentially causing odd behaviour.
- Added the TAB key to be the default crafting menu button, ~ key still works as well.
- Improvements to game loading time.
- Fixed potential memory leak when saving game.
- Fixed issue where 2 held item slots contents could be lost on death if the player had the “Arms of Imakl” blessing.

Known Issues
There are other issues that we’re still investigating. Thanks for your continued feedback and bug reports.

- Occasional lock-up on exiting the game.
- Loss of items between Chapters.
- Some achievements are not triggering correctly.
- Issues with UI visibility.
- Occasional erratic ragdoll behaviour when defeating creatures.
- Ongoing balancing.

Thanks again for all your feedback and your patience. We’re working hard on Windbound to fix issues and improve your experience.

5 Lives Studios

Performance

- Fixed potential lock-up on exit for PC players.
- Fixed issues where users could experience high input latency.
- Fixed stability issues.

Sailing/Boat

- Fixed items potentially being lost when exiting The Crossing while the player was not in control of the boat.
- Added a fix to only allow saving if the player is grounded or on a boat.
- Fixed issues where grass canoes were taking too much damage from coral.

Game Saves/Death

- Fixed an issue where players could respawn without a boat.
- Fixed an issue where containers could lose their contents when returning to the world after death.

Creatures & Combat

- Added a fix for creatures occasionally flying into the air upon death.
- Fixed a navigation issue where creatures would occasionally freeze.
- Fixed the occasional 2 second delay before Gorehorn reacts.

Tutorials

- Added an option to review tutorials from the pause menu in game.
- Added the option to disable tutorials.
- Added sailing tutorial refresher prompts.

Additional Bug Fixes

- Fixed some collision issues at the base of Nautilus Key towers.
- Fixed intermittent clipping issues.
- Added a fix to ensure profile achievement progress carries over to New Game +.
- Fixed minor UI issues on PC.

Added an option to review tutorials from the pause menu in game.

Windbound's First DLC - Out Now (and Free)

Hi everyone,

We’ve been working hard on improving Windbound for you and we can’t thank you enough for your continuing support with reporting crashes and other issues you’ve experienced.

We’re very happy to announce that our latest patch has now gone live and there’s a lot to unpack with it!

This patch focuses primarily on:

- The Eternal Voyage
- Photo Mode
- Witch Skin Outfit and Weapon
- Additional Blessing slots
- Adjustments to Land and Ocean combat actions, creature combat AI pathing and physics, resourcing and Blessing Shrines
- Changes made to New Game+, Tutorials, fall damage, camera movement, and boat damage calculations.

We've also included our DLC Roadmap to give you an idea of some of the new content, QOL enhancement, Skins, and functionality coming to Windbound

Build Number

Steam: 1.1.38199.301
GOG: 1.1.38199.110

Read on for the full DLC contents!

New Features

The Eternal Voyage

The Eternal Voyage offers players an Endless Play mode.

- Players can select this mode when they begin a new game.
- The game does not finish with Chapter 5.
- Death resets the player to the beginning of Chapter 1, retaining only their Blessings.

Photo Mode

A Creative mode for keen video game photographers offering full control over camera position & orientation, field of view, exposure, time of day, and position of the sun.

- 20 different poses & expressions for Kara.
- 20 hats and accessories for Kara.
- A variety of filters, from black & white, to CRT, to Pastel.
- Accessible from the Pause Menu.
- Ideal for social media sharing.

Witch Skin items

These items will be available to players when they find a Pumpkin in the world. Finding a Pumpkin will reward players with one of the following Blessings as a reward for exploring.

- Witch Hat makes the effects of potions last longer.
- Witch Outfit allows players to respawn nearby after death (single use).
- Witch Staff – This staff is unbreakable and fires target seeking magic orbs.
- For existing save games, Pumpkins will appear in the next chapter the player reaches, for new save games Pumpkins will appear from Chapter 1.

Blessing Slots

Players can now buy additional Blessing Slots if they have enough Sea Shard currency, allowing you to get more out of the Blessings system quicker, rather than having to rely on randomly being offered a new Blessing slot to equip more than one item.

Additional Bug Fixes and Improvements

General

- New Game+ now resets to Chapter 1 but keep all player progress.
- Tutorials will now appear in the Tutorials Menu to review as they unlock, regardless of whether the player has them set to off so as not to show whilst playing.
- Reduced fall damage at low fall distances.

Crafting and Resourcing

- Resolved a bug where food degraded during The Crossing.
- Fixed a bug where you could craft items in the Meta Hub.
- Corrected an issue where pots and other destructibles would not smash when attacking them.
- Fixed an issue where “Gortl's Descent” blessing was not giving any Shards as a reward.
- Increased rewards from Blessing Shrines.
- Fixed an issue where fish and other items were immediately sinking to the bottom of the ocean making them impossible to collect.
- Fixed a timing issue with wood-cutting sounds, broadened the spread of mining sounds and corrected the harvesting sound on Green mineral outcrops.
-. Fixed a bug where dismantling fires and cooking stations wasn’t giving players the items that were cooking/curing.

Ocean Combat, Sailing and Boat

- Boat impact damage calculations have been adjusted.
- Fixed an issue where boats sounded like they were taking damage when gently beaching, when they were not.
- Added a small grace period after Hookmouth attacks before applying further damage from subsequent attacks.
- Resolved an error where Kara could lose her weapon when a Hookmouth impacts her boat and throws her into the water.
- Fixed issue where Hookmouths could attack in shallow water.
- There was an issue where the Quick Select was visible when rowing/sailing (it’s not usable whilst rowing/sailing).

Combat and Weapons

- Resolved an issue with jittering combat camera.
- The combat camera will no longer travel through the floor.
- Fixed a bug where players could dodge while gliding.
- Fixed an issue with combat lock while gliding and falling.
- Allowed early dodge out of attacks, reduced time to regain movement control after attacking. Slight increase in backup stamina regen, slight reduction in stamina cost for Kara’s abilities.
- Resolved an issue where the Bastion Bow Field didn’t stop poison damage
- Poison now drains Kara’s stamina
- Fixed a bug where when a sling or bow broke it used up the ammo the player had without actually firing it. The sling/bow will now fire the projectile and then break.
- Locking on to a creature now correctly shows their name and health.
- Added further fixes to address creatures launching into space.
- Fixed issues where Plainstalkers would give up attacking after doing a dash attack.
- Resolved concerns with combat where Plainstalkers could get stuck in jump up or jump down states.
- Fixed an issue where Pondwhompers would abandon an attack part way through combat.
- Fixed instances where players were not being able to lock onto Tremorlurks properly.
- Resolved issues where Tremorlurks were not knowing that Kara is near.
- Slightly increased the anticipation time before a Tremorlurk bursts from the ground.
- Changed the minimum time from leaving the danger state to the danger music turning off from 3 seconds to 0.6 seconds, to help tighten-up the end of combat.

Thanks for your continued feedback and bug reports. There are other issues that we’re still investigating:

Sail sometimes spins for no reason.
Continuing to follow up on bug reports, etc.

If you do experience any issues after this DLC update, please send us your log and crash dump files. Send them through to https://support.deepsilver.com/games/WBND or support@kochmedia.co.uk.

Thanks again for all your feedback. We’re working hard on Windbound to improve your experience!

5 Lives Studios

Windbound's Second DLC - Out Now (and Free)

Hi everyone,

As the year draws to a close, we want to thank you for playing Windbound. We’ve been working hard to add more to the game, and we’re delighted to be able to share it with you now.

The major new features with this update are:

- New Nautilus Key Towers.
- Free Sailing Mode.
- Night Stalker outfit and weapon.

And of course, there’s a slew of fixes and tweaks too.

We've also included our DLC Roadmap again to keep you updated for the new content, QOL enhancement, Skins, and functionality coming to Windbound in the future:

Build Number

Steam: 1.2.39494.499
GOG: 1.2.39494.162

Read on for the full DLC contents!

New Features

New Nautilus Key Towers

As you continue your journey in Windbound, you’ll start to encounter new Towers that will test your crafting ability, provide you with puzzles to solve, treasure items to find, and even pit you up against magical creatures before you can claim each Nautilus Key.

Free Sailing Mode

We know some of you just like to heed to the temptation of the open water and sail. In this new mode you can build your ultimate craft and sail to your hearts’ content. If you’ve found the recipe for a boat part, you can use it in this mode straight away. It’s a great way to quickly experiment with boat builds without the pressure of combat and survival.

Night Stalker items

Players may be lucky enough to find a Treasure Map that leads them to hidden Night Stalker items. Rumour has it some maps were left around ancient ruins, but it’s going to take a thorough search to find them…

- Night Stalker Hood allows Kara to dodge much quicker without using as much stamina
- Night Stalker Outfit gives Kara the power of invisibility when stealthing, but this drains stamina
- Night Stalker Bow fires 2 magical arrows in quick succession after the initial arrow is fired

For existing save games, Night Stalker Treasure Maps will appear in the next chapter the player reaches, for new save games Night Stalker Treasure Maps will appear from Chapter 1.

Additional Bug Fixes and Improvements

General

- Added a controls diagram to Options/Gameplay (except Stadia).
- Added game hints to loading screens.
- Fixed a bug where the game mode was not always saved correctly.
- Added a Festive hat to Photo Mode – enjoy!
- Tutorial videos will show for less time when they replay after you have seen them the first time.
- Increased the performance and quality of grass.
- Revised the ‘PACIFIST’ achievement to make it easier; finish the game without killing any Razorbacks.

Crafting and Resourcing

- Fixed an issue that prevented you from selecting tools with lower health if there were multiple in your inventory.
- Fixed a bug where crafting was possible in the Meta Hub.
- Raw food reduces slightly less hunger.
- Fixed an issue where harvesting animations did not play immediately after moving.
- Added jerky recipes.
- Resolved an issue where on occasion, players would only be offered 1 option plus a slot upgrade after The Crossing.

Ocean Combat, Sailing and Boat

- Changed the action to dismantle boat parts to now require holding the button down so this can’t be done accidentally.
- Fixed a bug where dismantling a boat didn’t refund resources for attached containers/racks etc.
- The radius of effect of storms have been increased, as has the wind strength. Good luck sailors!
- Map reveal radius has been increased.
- Fixed an issue where player projectiles could damage the mast.
- Canoes and hulls are crafted using the same recipe now.
- Players can no longer save at the start of The Crossing to prevent them accidentally getting stuck and having no previous save to reload.
- A new warning has been added when boat components get near critical damage.
- Fixed a bug where Hookmouths may not be visible to the camera before starting its ram attack.
- Canoes with sails are now more stable and less likely to topple in high winds, particularly during The Crossing.

Combat and Weapons

- Updated the attack range of Pondwhompers.
- Players can now switch ammo via quick select whilst aiming.
- Fixed an issue where Silkmaws could get stuck when spawning from nest.
- Increased the loot drop from Tremorlurks.
- Adjusted Gloomharrow dodge timings.
- Snake behaviours have been amended.

If you experience any issues after this DLC update, please send us your log and crash dump files. Send them through to https://support.deepsilver.com/games/WBND or support@kochmedia.co.uk.

Thanks again for your continued support. We hope you enjoy this update, and there’s more to come in 2021!

5 Lives Studios

Windbound's Third DLC - Out Now (and Free)

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year! We’ve been busy over the break adding new, exciting content to Windbound for you. It might just be the biggest update yet!

We’ve introduced several major new features with this update:

- The Loathing.
- Forsaken Enemies.
- New Melee Combat moves.
- New Items.
- New Challenge Towers.

Plus, several tweaks and fixes to Photo Mode, Crafting and Sailing.

Build Number

Steam: 1.3.40745.717
GOG: 1.3.40746.183

Read on for the full DLC contents!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Features

The Loathing

Kara's return to the Forbidden Islands has stirred a long-forgotten undead enemy to life... erm… unlife! And where these new Forsaken foes have risen, a supernatural malevolence has bubbled out of the earth, seeping into the sea, tainting the land and corrupting the local wildlife - the Loathing.

Should Kara spend too long in the presence of the Loathing, she, too, will become blighted, suffering from diminishing health until she is overwhelmed. Thankfully, the edible blooms that dot the isles can stave off the full effects of the Loathing, and they can even be combined to create more potent potions and other useful artefacts.

Forsaken Enemies

On the islands corrupted by the Loathing, Kara will encounter a variety of fearsome enemies from the time of her ancestors. Some may even bar her progress to The Crossing.

- Forsaken Warrior: Equipped with a short-range weapon that is best defeated using the new parry melee combat move.
- Forsaken Trickster: A fast-moving combatant that keeps a safe distance from Kara, dodging melee attacks. Attacks in short flurries of melee strikes which can be countered. Best response is to use the new lunge attack whilst the enemy is charging its ranged attack.
- Forsaken Shieldbearer: A slow-moving foe that uses a shield to block attacks. But beware, they also use the shield to perform lunge attacks that cannot be blocked or countered. Vulnerable to the new dodge attack ability.
- Klio the Wardancer: A fearsome adversary with deadly melee skills.
- Korr the Undefeated: Watch out for an unexpected slam and reinforcements.
- Inara the Godslayer: Let’s just say she doesn’t want to be friends?

New Melee Combat moves

As Kara progresses on her journey, she’ll have the opportunity to learn some new combat moves.

- Kara can learn how to Parry incoming attacks and then launch a stinging counterattack on her enemies.
- Whilst dodging an incoming attack Kara can launch a Dodge attack on her attacker. Handy when facing an enemy with a shield.
- Kara can learn how to launch a Lunge attack, launching her forward with her melee weapon to deal devastating damage.

New Items

- Spectral Residue: This substance is all that remains from a defeated Forsaken enemy. Collect enough and it can be used to imbue Kara’s weapons with enchanted abilities, or even help restore health after a challenging encounter with the Forsaken hordes.
- Spectral Spear: The enchantment woven into this spear does additional damage to ghostly foes and can shatter the crystal barriers of the Loathing.
- Spectral Arrows: The enchantment woven into these arrows does additional damage to ghostly foes and can shatter the crystal barriers of the Loathing.
- Spectral Stimulant: Drinking this potion instantly restores a large amount of Kara's health.
- Cleansing Cordial: Removes some of the corrupting effect of the Loathing.
- Draft of Divine Defiance: Fortifies Kara against the effects of the Loathing for a long period of time, reducing its impact.

As her journey continues, Kara may find the ancient recipe for a selection of Runes to enhance her abilities whilst she carries them.

- Mark of the Scorpion: While the mark is in Kara's inventory, charging a ranged weapon will slowly drain Kara’s health, but will deal massive damage to the target on a successful hit.
- Mark of Punishment: While the mark is in Kara's inventory, each consecutive melee or ranged attack on a target causes increased damage, but Kara will take increased damage from consecutive attacks, too.
- Mark of Patience: While the mark is in Kara's inventory, dodging or countering attacks will charge Kara’s weapon, dealing increased damage.
- Mark of the Martyr: While stored in Kara’s inventory, this mark will take degradation damage instead of her weapons or tools. Once fully degraded, the mark is destroyed.

As Kara learns new melee combat moves, she may also learn how to craft Ancestral Masks to amplify her combat abilities.

- Forsaken Mask of Countering: Increases the timing window on parrying and increases damage on counterattacks.
- Klio’s Mask of Graceful Dodging: Reduces the stamina cost for dodging while increasing the damage output of the dodge attack.
- Korr’s Mask of Mighty Lunging: Reduces the stamina cost for lunge and increases Kara’s melee damage.

But it will take a herculean effort to obtain the ultimate Ancestral Mask - Inara will not give it up without a fight.

- Inara’s Mask of Divine Protection: In combat, Kara will manifest a divine shield that can completely negate the damage from a single attack.

New Challenge Towers

- From Chapter 2 onwards, Kara may encounter new, more challenging puzzle towers with multiple steps before unlocking.
- From Chapter 4 onwards, Kara may encounter towers that are consumed by Loathing and peppered with crystal blockers. Kara must cleanse the tower to unlock it, if only there was some kind of Spectral weapons she could use against the Loathing?

Additional Bug Fixes and Improvements

General

- Fixed an issue where the Inventory/crafting menu would not appear correctly in a play session after playing Free Sailing mode.
- Resolved an issue in Photo Mode where the “Less is Maw” hat was not appearing.
- Fixed an issue in Photo Mode where controls for moving the camera up/down were not always displaying correctly.
- Fixed a bug where combat music could repeatedly start/stop as you were running away from an enemy whilst being chased.
- Corrected a bug where exiting a menu whilst gliding would cancel the glider and cause Kara to fall from the sky.
- Resolved an issue where some shrines appeared to have been visited/collected even when it was the first time the player encountered them.
- Fixed an occasional bug where the Plainstalker could be seen doing handstands on tall rocks.

Crafting and Resourcing

- Fixed an issue on the crafting menu where unavailable item icons were difficult to read.
- Fixed a bug where fires on boats could sometimes not be interacted with.
- Resolved an occasional issue where after starting sailing, crafting was not possible on the boat.
- Items that can be crafted at fires are now accessible from the normal crafting window. These items will show the fire (or oven or cooking pot) as a required item (like how the hammer is for oil). If the player is standing near the relevant fire, they will be able to craft these items.
- When interacting with a fire, the crafting menu now shows the appropriate recipes.
- When players interact with a fire, the current items being cooked are shown at the top.
- Standing near a fire, the player will now see the available slots to cook.

Ocean Combat, Sailing and Boat

- Anchored boat acts as a respawn point. If the player anchors their boat and dies, then they will respawn on their boat when they re-enter the world.
- Fixed a bug where de-crafting or repairing the boat could alter the wrong component depending on when the player released the button/moved the camera.

If you experience any issues after this DLC update, please send us your log and crash dump files. Send them through to Support or support@kochmedia.co.uk.

Thanks again for you continued support and feedback. We really hope you enjoy the latest DLC update!

5 Lives Studios