What a terrible day to be a God of War-like! You put on your fanciest bird suit for your big reveal, then a whole bunch of actual God of Wars come along and steal your thunder. But that’s not to say Krafton’s new open-world PlayStation 5 game Project Windless isn’t intriguing.
Project Windless is, for starters, based on an acclaimed series of South Korean high fantasy novels known as Bird That Drinks Tears. Four books have been released so far, all set in a world inhabited by four main races: the boring old humans, the reptilian Nhaga, the Tokkebi, and the bird-like Rekon. That’s how we get Project Windless’ perhaps somewhat unlikely looking protagonist.
As per the PlayStation Blog, Project Windless (which is being led by Patrik Méthé, veteran director on Ubisoft’s Far Cry series) takes place over a thousand years before the events of the books, and focuses its attention on the Rekon. We haven’t been given the name of its musclebound bird protagonist yet, but Krafton says the Rekon’s “speed, reach, and physical presence” were the perfect fit for the “one-versus-many combat fantasy” at the Windless’ core.
Elsewhere, its open world is designed with “as little hand-holding as possible” in order to stoke curiosity, and to encourage players “to take risks, to forge alliances, to wage war, and ultimately to decide what kind of legend [they] want to become.” As for combat, there are echoes of Dynasty Warriors, as players are battle “dozens (sometimes hundreds) of enemies at once.”
And that’s pretty much all we know so far. Project Windless is currently in development for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro (no other platforms are confirmed) and doesn’t have even a whiff of a release date.