At the beginning of Windward, you’re presented with four factions to choose from. In Tasharen Entertainment’s maritime action/exploration game, these factions represent the four styles of play Windward nominally offers: exploration, combat, trading, and diplomacy (read: questing). In the game’s yawn-inducing first hour, that may seem like an apt description for the potential in the procedurally generated world set in front of you. But as you sink more time into Windward, its similarities to Sid Meier’s Pirates! reveal themselves to be a masquerade–yet it still finds more time for the yawns, for good measure.
Windward presents itself as a “chart your own adventure” high-seas simulator promising great ocean expanses, complex economic trading, diplomatic engagement, and high-octane sea battles for whoever wishes to find their inner Magellan or Admiral Horatio Nelson. You sail your ship (and the small fleet you gather at the beginning of the game) around procedurally generated seas trading goods, hunting pirates, laying siege to cities, and building diplomatic relationships with towns and opposing alliances. But every mode features the depth of a freshman-level phil…