Windrose's Ashlands update turns your ship's hold into a floating base

Kraken Express shared the first details of Ashlands, the first major update for Windrose, on 8 October. It starts with ships: customisation is being rebuilt from the ground up, and you will be able to install a workbench and a cooking fire below deck. The studio had already shown the release window in a trailer during the Triple-i Initiative.

Right now, two factions have their own ship variants, the Brethren of the Coast and Blackbeard’s Crew. According to the developers, that approach turned out to be too restrictive. Faction hulls and sails took up most of the visual variety. Changing your ship’s look often meant switching to another faction version entirely. And building separate ships for every faction in the game would have been hard to maintain.

In Ashlands you pick a ship class and customise it from there. Build a Ketch, for example, and the full pool of Ketch options is open to you. Some of the old faction visuals move into a broader mix-and-match system alongside new elements. The existing faction ships will be removed, and Kraken Express says it will explain the migration once the details are settled. You won’t lose progress, though: resources from dismantled ships are refunded in full.

Most of the post is about the hold. “At sea, your ship is your home,” the studio writes. A workbench and a cooking fire are confirmed so far. Extra storage containers next to the regular cargo hold are being looked at, though you might not be able to reach them remotely through the Flagship tab.

Some modules will affect the ship itself. You could fit it out for an expedition into the new biome, make room for a trading run or prepare for a fight at sea. Purely decorative items are planned as well.

What you won’t get is free building on deck. Ships will have a limited number of designated building spots. Kraken Express explains that ships are among the most technically complex entities in the game, and free-form building on top of them could hurt performance noticeably. It also wants the cramped spaces below deck to stay easy to move through for players and crew.

More ship systems involving the crew and cannons are in the works, with details to follow. The studio plans to reveal more of Ashlands regularly from now on and is asking players in the comments which other facilities they would like to see below deck.