Early Access Pirate Game Windrose Was Silently Destroying Players' SSDs

A Bug That Ate SSDs

Early Access pirate game Windrose was quietly degrading players' SSDs at a staggering rate before developer Kraken Express addressed the problem with an April 30 housekeeping update.

The Numbers

Investigation revealed the game was using RocksDB and generating approximately 90,000-130,000 disk write operations per second during normal gameplay. After the patch, testing during sailing showed just 20-30 writes per second, a reduction of over 4,000x.

Community Reaction

The r/pcgaming community reacted with a mix of alarm and dry humor. It is a survival game, they just did not tell us it was an SSD survival game, quipped one top commenter. Many users noted they would immediately check their drive health.

Kraken Express acted quickly once the issue was publicly identified, though players who ran the game before the patch may have already experienced measurable SSD wear.