Remember Windward? Released in 2015, it's an action-filled multiplayer sandbox game that puts you in control of a ship sailing the high seas of a large procedurally-generated world and it's getting a sequel with Windward Horizon.
Windward sold quite well too, over 500K copies I've been told, so not a big surprise to see Tasharen Entertainment return to the setting. Currently the Steam page only lists Windows support officially, but Stride PR told me very clearly "Windward Horizon will have support on Linux as well.".
The developer said they aim to "improve every aspect of the original, such as adding lore to the game, a robust economy system that governs growth, fully configurable internal ship layouts with adjacency bonuses and penalties for interesting builds and many, many new skills to complement the expanded talent trees" and it will be free to try next month for a limited time.
Direct Link
“As a standalone sequel, Windward Horizon improves upon Windward’s foundation while keeping its original charm,” said Michael Lyashenko, Founder of Tasharen Entertainment. “With an engaging gameplay loop filled with intricate systems and detailed customization options, we’re creating a feeling of freedom many open world sandbox games can’t match.”
Follow along on the Steam page.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Kuduzkehpan Apr 22
Quoting: Kuduzkehpan"Tasharen" is amazing company that cares about Linux users. i bought anything from them. Sightseer windward and so on. Love their game mechanics. i hope to get windward horizon soon.Funny you should say that, since my impression was the exact opposite. Not only Linux though, Tasharen in general struck me as a company I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them.
I didn't play Windward, but I bought Sightseer and noticed spurious connection attempts to some servers in Russia (the company *is* Russian AFAICT, so probably not too surprising… but I still don't like being watched every second I play) that were clearly originating from the game with no way to opt out, I stopped playing and threw it in the bin – I may even have force-removed the game from my Steam library IIRC, it's been quite a while and I honestly can't be bothered to check. I seem to remember they were also integrating RedShell, but that's purely from memory, so please take it with a grain of salt.
The reviews and forum discussions I read, and I *did* read up on Windward too, painted a bleak picture with no communication from the company, no updates or fixes for known issues, and basically the impression of 'got their money and went dark'.
I haven't looked back, feels like it must have been five years or more, and I'm surprised they still exist and even have the gall to get out a new game.
This is all from my personal experience with them of course, maybe it's different if one actually speaks Russian and is able to visit their Russian forums, I don't know, and frankly I don't care.
I for one won't touch anything from Tasharen, be it with a pole or anything else, no matter how long.
Oh, and by the way, since neither the article nor tags mention it – Windward and Sightseer were both Unity games; I'd be surprised if they didn't pick Unity again for Windward II as well. Just in case anyone cares.
Last edited by Valck on 22 April 2024 at 3:20 pm UTC
Quoting: ValckI wasn't going to comment on this article in any way at all, but after this, I feel I have to present the obverse of the coin….............
What the...? Tasharen is a Canadian company based in Ontario.
Quoting: DrakkerI'll accept that as fact, in all honesty I can't be bothered to go and look them up. I may have misremembered, or I may have originally been misled by the developer's name, it's been such a long time; my apologies if I got that wrong.Quoting: ValckI wasn't going to comment on this article in any way at all, but after this, I feel I have to present the obverse of the coin….............
What the...? Tasharen is a Canadian company based in Ontario.
What matters to me is not where they are based, but how they act and interact, and all I can say is that *my* personal impression was abysmal. That does not mean it has to be the same for everybody else, obviously it was not for Kuduzkehpan.
All I intended was to present a different angle, and even that was probably already too much for a thread I got myself involved in against my better judgement.
My apologies if anybody felt offended.
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