Finally, a new pirate game that's actually good: I can't stop playing the Steam Next Fest demo for this open-world survival game with Assassin's Creed Black Flag sailing, Sea of Thieves combat, and Ark crafting

Windrose art with pirate pointing gun toward an offscreen character.

It's been a few years of rough sailing for fans of pirate games. Without naming names, I feel like there hasn't been a whole lot of treasure on treasure island recently, but it looks like a cask of salvation has washed ashore in the truly shipshape Steam Next Fest demo for Windrose, an open-world PvE survival crafting game blending influences from genre titans like Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Sea of Thieves, and Ark.

In my many seasons playing Steam Next Fest demos for work, I've scarcely come across one as well-optimized as Windrose, which is really saying something for an open-world survival crafting game. This thing is a full-blown PvE base-building sim with resource and health management, in-depth sailing, naval combat, boarding and melee battles, and a story with beautifully animated cutscenes, and yet, in my 30 minutes with the demo it ran like an absolute champ on my ancient, RX 580 desktop.