Since the alpha ended for Crosswind Crew’s highly anticipated upcoming pirate survival game, Crosswind, the developers have been hard at work polishing and adding more content for the upcoming release. The recent playtest helped them gather important player feedback, and they will be making major changes: the MMO aspect of the game will be removed and the monetization model will undergo a significant change.

Along with the announcement, they shared a new trailer and revealed another biome. The Ashlands is one of the more dangerous locations, a scorched land covered in volcanic ash and crawling with skeletons. This actually reminds the latest biome in Valheim. Like in other locations, you will also find buried treasure, large dungeons with their own bosses to defeat, and unique quests. Tortuga, the main hub you will often be visiting for trade, has been reimagined as a besieged outpost. The people here are in constant war with the undead.

There were also a few smaller changes made to the way ships feel during combat. The water pushes your vessel around like it would in real life. The crew is now visible on deck, allowing you to see what they are doing during a fight, and various animations have been added to them to enhance immersion.

During the alpha, Crosswind Crew learned a lot about what the players like. Most have a background in survival games and are not really interested in the MMO aspect, but rather in playing solo or with friends. Due to this, they are now reworking the infrastructure, as it was built with an online game in mind.

This also led to discussions about pricing. The original plan was for Crosswind to launch as a free-to-play game and update it with DLCs and microtransactions. However, the game will now use a Buy-to-play model, skipping the paid cosmetics and allowing the devs to work on high-quality content instead.

Another major change to the plans is to release the game sooner than expected, instead of waiting for a 1.0 launch when it is ready. We can now expect Crosswind to enter early access earlier in 2026.

Would you rather see the game as a survival MMO or a co-op title? Let me know in the comments.