Where Winds Meet follows the classic formula popularized by the creators of Genshin Impact, combining a single-player open-world adventure with MMORPG elements. However, it offers players not a colorful anime fairy tale, but a harsh and realistic China, where everything is based on the philosophy of cultivation and wuxia traditions. Games in this genre have not yet offered such scale with the support of serious budgets, so Where Winds Meet confidently claims the title of one of the best wuxia action games.
Journey to the West
Many players of my generation, and those older, grew up watching films that glorified Chinese martial arts and the philosophical teachings behind them. You don't have to look far: just remember "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or the endless reruns of Bruce Lee films, which for decades did not leave the TV screens and were perceived on par with Western pop culture phenomena like "Predator" or "Terminator." Over time, the wave of mass popularity subsided, and such action films, especially those with elements of fantasy, turned into a niche genre for a narrow circle of connoisseurs.
In the gaming industry, the situation remained similar for a long time. The Chinese market lived mainly within its own contour: internal mobile MMOs, local RPGs, projects created for the public inside the country and almost never going beyond its borders. Games with elements of wuxia, cultivation, and traditional mythology existed separately from the global market, developed in isolation, and most often represented the very "donate dumps" with tiny budgets and even smaller ambitions. Even now, in 2025, if you go in search of the most popular projects in this theme, you will run into a set of strange products that do not arouse the slightest desire to enter even out of curiosity.
The situation began to change rapidly in 2020, when miHoYo (HoYoverse) came on the scene and demonstrated that creating an expensive, beautiful, detailed, and at the same time free game is quite real. The success of Genshin Impact became clear proof that the international audience is ready to immerse themselves in projects based on Eastern cultural codes, if they are backed by quality, technology, and a clear artistic vision. It was Genshin that shattered the entrenched belief that games from China inevitably look cheap, work crookedly, and rely on intrusive "pay to win" monetization, and set a new bar for what a world-class F2P product can be.
Already in 2024, the industry faced a new phenomenon — Black Myth: Wukong. It showed that Chinese studios are capable of creating not only service games, but also full-fledged expensive AAA projects, and that such games arouse interest far beyond the local audience.
Collectively, these two phenomena created a new context. There was an expectation that China is capable of producing projects on its own cultural basis and at the same time maintain the interest of the Western audience. Where Winds Meet from Everstone Studio with the support of NetEase entered this niche. This is a project that not only picks up the trend, but strives to embody it with due scale. The game offers immersion in a realistic historical China, where wuxia, cultivation, and spirit-strengthening practices work not only as a cultural foundation, but also as system-forming mechanics. The scale and quality of production at the same time are approaching what the genre has historically lacked.
Sorry for this long introduction, but it is difficult to do without it, because Where Winds Meet cannot be considered in a vacuum. The game is noticeably inspired by the above projects and many others, so one such prologue is better than endless remarks in the spirit of "this has already been in Genshin" or "well done — for a free game." Where Winds Meet is desperately trying to become that very "something for everyone," trying to please "both yours and ours," but in its scale it is sprayed on too many vectors, each of which does not always reach the desired goal.
Chinese turmoil
The story in Where Winds Meet is quite traditional for Chinese heroic fantasy — this is the easiest way to describe what "wuxia" is without going into complex terms. We find ourselves in 10th century China, in a turbulent time of fragmentation, called the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, when the country was just preparing to embark on the path of unification. We take on the role of a wandering warrior who has to gradually reveal the secret of his own origin, understand the intricacies of a political conspiracy, and face the mystical background of this world.
But first, we are waiting for a rather impressive action prologue, in which the hero runs away from the chase on horseback and fights, holding a baby in his arms. The staging of this scene remains quite simple technically, including primitive QTE inserts, but at the same time achieves the desired effect.
Here we are taught the basic mechanics: archery, sword strikes, parrying, dodging, and using abilities. Then there is a timeskip: several years pass, and the baby from the prologue turns out to be an already grown-up hero (or heroine). At this point, the player is given the opportunity to create their own character.
The customization tools are quite wide: after choosing the gender and one of the basic appearances, access is opened to a detailed editor, in which you can spend more than one hour creating the character of your dreams. There are so many settings that you can't list them all, but the main ones — like breast size (hehe) — have not been delivered. However, you can customize the face, makeup in detail, import your photo for auto-generation of appearance, or peek at those already created by other players.
The plot in the game is presented in fragments and is currently not available in its entirety. It is divided into chapters and episodes that will appear in the game by seasons (approximately once every three months). Moreover, the game artificially limits the pace of passage — and in several directions at once. After every few quests, you are inevitably stopped and sent to level up a few more levels before you can move further along the plot.
However, even with an infinite supply of time, you will not be allowed to level up freely: every ten levels you need to pass a combat test in order to unlock further leveling and increase the level of the world. Having reached the fortieth level, I found that the game asks me to wait a day before I can pass this test.
Okay, I waited a day — I opened the level increase to 50, but it immediately turned out that the next increase in the level of the world to the sixth will be available only in four days. And how much it will take to get to the maximum eleventh level of the world is a big mystery.
This is a feature familiar from NetEase projects (I've seen a lot of them), and it artificially equalizes the progress of players, regardless of how much time they spend in the game. Therefore, I will immediately stipulate that at the time of writing this material, I have not completed the entire available plot, but this is not required, since due to the peculiarities of the development of such games, the completion of one large plot chapter will probably fit into a year-long development cycle. Until then, it is somewhat meaningless to talk about its quality. So far, I can note that the story begins as a rather large-scale and confusing adventure, but so far it rather sets the mood than tells a complete story.
This is partly due to the crumpled plot moments: the game does not allow you to go through the story sequentially and regularly forces you to be distracted by side activities due to the above restrictions. Partly — with the fact that, entering the international market, the developers of Where Winds Meet never provided the project with localization into the third most popular language in Steam.
There are not even Russian subtitles here, and the English version is mediocre: there are inaccurate translations, which sometimes make it difficult to understand what exactly is happening (and this is noted even by English-speaking players). The situation is aggravated by the almost complete absence of lip-sync and "laying" of voice acting. Characters often speak without opening their mouths, because the original Chinese line was shorter, and some phrases in English are not voiced at all.
With all this, it cannot be said that the plot is completely boring. At times, Where Winds Meet rewards for advancing through the story, firing spectacular scenes made with the scope and pathos inherent in wuxia. For example, one of the battles with the boss unfolds almost in three dimensions: real and mirror, divided in half.
However, the most interesting thing happens in the staged scene, when two characters drain jugs of rice wine in one gulp and burst into the crowd. A spectacular massacre begins in the best traditions of Chinese cinema: blades whistle, enemies scatter, and in the midst of the carnage, one of the heroes deftly substitutes a sword under a shard of a broken jug so that it rolls right into his mouth — and takes another sip of the intoxicating elixir to start cutting opponents with renewed vigor.
Such moments are the quintessence of the hypertrophied style of wuxia: perhaps unnecessarily pretentious, but damn spectacular. Otherwise, the plot so far acts more as a pretext for colorful battles and traveling through a huge open world, which we will talk about next.
Nice uniformity
The open world and its technical implementation are something between Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Ghost of Tsushima: it is moderately realistic, able to please with details, but still relies more on the overall visual image than on an attempt to detail every little thing.
This is noticeable in the work of the physical model: somewhere you can cut down a whole bamboo forest or set fire to the grass with a fiery arrow, somewhere the use of ability will lift all the surrounding foliage into the air, and somewhere even a blade of grass will not stir — the environment remains completely static and practically does not react to your actions. There are also weather effects, picturesque gusts of wind and a dynamic change of time of day, which together creates a convincing feeling of a large, living space in which it is really pleasant to be.
The only thing that, in my opinion, it lacks is visual diversity. The locations presented at the moment look quite monotonous, representing forests, meadows, rivers and mountains, and I want to believe that with future updates there will be other, more saturated and bright biomes.
In terms of optimization, the game is also pleasing: on my RTX 4070 Super, it holds a confident 95–100 frames in native 1440p, which is expected, given the planned December release on smartphones. However, it would be almost perfect if it were not for the periodic loading of textures right in front of your eyes. I would gladly get rid of them, sacrificing the frame rate, but I did not find such an opportunity in the PC version.
The only thing that really impresses is the capital — Kaifeng. This is the largest and most detailed city in the game: there are hidden shops, fairs, piers, man-made lakes and streams, theater areas, temples and gardens where life is in full swing. At first, you move around the capital slowly, as on a real excursion. It's a pity that you can't get into the imperial palace without an invitation, but I'm sure players will get it one day.
This location is very elaborate and heavily loads the system, dropping the frame rate down to 50 frames per second. The developers stated that there are about 10,000 NPCs here, and although I am not personally sure about this, I think it is close to the truth, given that the streets are really densely populated, and it will probably take more than one hour to fully explore every corner of the capital.
However, how "alive" this world feels is a controversial issue. Despite the impressive number of NPCs and carefully crafted decorations, interaction with citizens is often reduced to a minimum. Most characters play the role of background mass: they walk along predetermined routes, repeat short animations, react to the player only within the limits of a modest scenario, and rarely offer something that goes beyond the usual replicas.
However, this does not interfere with immersion, since there are enough random events (which are actually not random), quest characters who will find both routine and quite intriguing tasks; and even real AI NPCs.
The developers are experimenting with a dialogue system based on neural network models: some characters really answer you not with pre-written phrases, but with dynamically generated replicas in response to your phrases, which must be manually written on the keyboard.
In practice, however, the system has few opportunities so far. Most of these NPCs support an extremely simplified conversation, repeat similar phrases and quickly move on to a cycle of identical answers. Sometimes they just don't understand the context and offer meaningless comments.
Piled on — be healthy!
While exploring the world, the game encourages you to look into the distance and go where curiosity leads you. Everything you see on the horizon is really achievable — you just need to figure out how to get there. However, moving on to the topic of content filling, I want to say that Where Winds Meet is stuffed with it so much that I even, I confess, get lost where to start. There is even too much content here for the starting version of any service game.
At the basic level, while exploring the world, you will encounter chests, hidden interactions, puzzles at every step — from the most elementary, the solution of which lies on the surface, to multi-stage spatial tasks with preliminary decryption of clues from texts based on Chinese mythology.
Some of these puzzles require the use of so-called mythical abilities — such as "taiji", which creates a whirlwind, "heavenly capture" (telekinesis) or "meridian touch", which uses acupuncture points of the target (read: makes the target freeze), and others. These same abilities can be used in combat: for example, telekinesis allows you to disarm the enemy, and "cloud steps" not only allow you to attract to ledges, but also quickly catch up with the fleeing enemy.
These abilities are unlocked through completing quests, and some, such as "taiji" or "jumping frog", are obtained when you observe the actions of animals and repeat their movements, passing a simple QTE game.
Among other activities — tests for collecting items for a while, sections with parkour and acrobatics, combat tests with conditions, full-fledged stealth tests, because yes, there is an invisibility ability here, and there are missions where you make your way to the enemy base, secretly eliminate opponents, loot chests and get to the main goal, in order to… no, not to kill her, but to peek at a combat technique and unlock new opportunities for weapons.
And this is only a small part of what the game offers. I bet you don't expect to meet a card battler here, with the help of which you have to rid the goose of mental problems?!
We will talk about the combat system and development later, but for now let's clear up a little more "content", which the developers have piled on so much that it is simply impossible to list everything. To master it completely, you need hundreds of hours and almost a complete lack of personal life.
Therefore, you should also know that the game supports two modes of passage: solo and multiplayer. In the first, you exist in your own separate world, explore, adventure and go through the plot, and in the second you are transferred to the common world to other players — and here, accordingly, you will find another portion of multiplayer content.
In multiplayer, the structure resembles a hybrid of a classic MMO and a theme park: some of the modes are all the same outpost sweeps, stealth missions and battles with bosses, only in the company of other players. But in the "peaceful" part, we are waiting for fun of a more exotic kind.
These are group practices like different types of meditation, collective cultivation of Qi energy, running in a circle with shouting slogans, group quizzes, retreats for treating villagers (in fact — a raid run, but in the format of a card battler) and much more.
Among the more "entertaining" events: fireworks shows, mahjong tournaments, cruises on a ship, drinking competitions, card games, guessing riddles, wrestling, making music, bathing in hot springs — you can even massage a friend's back. And this is far from the whole list: there are really a ton of activities.
But this luxury has one problem: you quickly begin to notice how many activities are similar to each other. This is where the key flaw lies. For example, debates and wrestling are fun mini-games, but in essence they, like "healing diseases", are primitive card battlers with minimal differences in conditions.
In debates, in addition, it is impossible to read all the answer options in English in time to react in time. And in competitions for guessing riddles, a banal language barrier interferes: there is no automatic translator in the game, and when a Russian, a German and a Czech gather in one team, the event falls apart, turning into a bearded anecdote.
Yes, the developers really piled up a lot of everything — without exaggeration. But only a few of these activities are really entertaining, and in the worst case, you just start to get confused in them. It is saved only by the fact that for every sneeze the game generously throws experience and resources, motivating you to at least try everything once.
Don't join — think
The sect system deserves a separate discussion — local martial arts schools or factions to which the hero can join. In Where Winds Meet, sects work not only as part of the lore, but also as a mechanical superstructure over the character. Each has its own rules, bonuses and penalties, a set of preferred martial arts and its own store, where unique items are sold for reputation, inaccessible to representatives of other schools.
You won't be able to join the sect right away. First you need to do what the game is already pushing you to do: explore the world, collect clues, read notes, communicate with masters and complete small tasks. Only when you collect enough "clues" can you join the sect. After that, the cycle familiar from MMO begins: we increase the rank in the sect, fulfill orders, gain reputation, open access to new items and techniques.
For example, you can run around the world and heal other people by joining the sect of healers, or join the sect of the midnight blade and get bonuses from battles with other players. And the sect of the righteous will allow you to give money to other players, but if you earn more than you should in a week, you will lose reputation points.
You can, however, refuse to belong to any sect at all and remain free. In this case, their rules do not apply to you, no one limits you, but in return you lose access to part of the benefits and pay an increased price for learning martial arts.
On paper, the system looks like another way to give the game a wuxia flavor: there are schools, there are their doctrines, there is a choice of path. In fact, it partially suffers from the same problems as the rest of the content of Where Winds Meet. There are many sects, each with its own nuances, tasks, restrictions, weekly limits on reputation and currency. This adds role-playing depth, but at the same time enhances the feeling of being overloaded: another system that you need to keep in mind when you are already juggling plot tasks, side activities, seasonal events and other activities.
разбирательства в стиле летающих кинжалов
No game in the wuxia setting can exist without an expressive combat system, and the developers understood this perfectly. The local combat system resembles a hybrid of Sekiro, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and Nioh — approximately in equal proportions, with parrying, jerks and rolls, rapid attacks and combining weapon techniques, mystical skills, switching between types of weapons to continue the combo, but with much more emphasis on acrobatics and technical effectiveness inherent in wuxia. If you describe the battle in simple words: it is fast, technical and requires reaction, but at the same time forgives mistakes to beginners.
The game has three basic levels of difficulty (story, standard and expert), as well as a hardcore mode with permanent death, which is not yet available. At the standard level, battles resemble a simplified Sekiro: enemies have a qi (concentration) scale, which must be exhausted by a series of strikes and parries in order to break through their defense. The parrying mechanic here is classic: press the button before you are hit — you will get the result, and if you dodge at the last moment, you can even slow down time.
However, the developers have included a flexible setting and allow you to partially automate parrying, turning the reactive mechanics into a simplified QTE format, where every few seconds you are guaranteed to parry attacks by pressing just one button that is highlighted on the screen. This feature does not work in PvP mode, but in PvE it allows you to master the content even for those who came here exclusively to bask in the springs and play mahjong.
The game features eight types of weapons, and each with its own set of techniques, stance and even role: from paired blades and spears to a combat fan and umbrella. Moreover, one type of fan allows you to become a long-range mage, while the other is a healer. Basically, the division into roles is necessary for high-level group content, but even in single mode I liked running with a set of rapid paired blades with high damage, without depriving myself of the opportunity to switch, without interrupting the combo, to a fan to heal.
What is convenient — you do not need to pump each weapon separately. It is the equipment slots that are improved: the left and right hand. Pumped the slot — automatically strengthened any weapon that is inserted into it. In addition, there are separate improvements for specific types of weapons, but they are not tied to a specific blade. However, it is for their unlocking that it is necessary to pass various combat tests.
Battles in this game are enjoyable and pleasing to the eye largely due to decent animation and combat choreography — so much so that it is easy to turn a blind eye to the monotony of opponents (at least for now). But this praise is applicable only to the player's avatar, since hits on the enemy often feel insufficiently tactile: strikes — both with a two-handed sword, with a spear, with paired blades — most often look the same and do not have enough "weight". But, I repeat, this did not become a big problem for me, since you forgive a lot, just enjoying the spectacle on the screen.
However, if it's fun to chop dummies here, then when it comes to battles with other players — you can't say that. Where Winds Meet offers several modes of confrontation: an arena "one on one", which is available only at a certain time, and a royal battle, which is always open.
The problem is that the combat system created for PvE in PvP ceases to work as expressively. All its strengths — the beauty of animations, dynamics, combos and mystical arts — turn into a chaotic spam with a set of techniques, until one of you falls dead. The situation is aggravated by cases when the connection is unstable and the animations become more jerky — it looks sad.
The situation improves slightly in the royal battle mode, where battles stretch in time and space, slowing down their pace and allowing you to use abilities wisely and control the distance. But here, too, the thesis about superficial implementation does not go away. The local royal battle partially resembles Naraka: Bladepoint from the same NetEase and serves only as another item in a long list of activities. It is hard to imagine that someone will launch Where Winds Meet exclusively for this mode, when there is a separate game that does the same much better.
Of the positive moments, it can be noted that PvP here takes place on equal terms, with the exception that there is a separate branch of pumping characteristics for PvP, which, if desired, allows you to ignore everything else, if you are interested exclusively in battles with other players. Otherwise, there are no mechanics from the category of "pay to win" here, and the monetization itself is much more generous than that of potential competitors.
Don't pay to win
At first glance, monetization offers a familiar "gentleman's set" of gacha service games: a monthly subscription, a battle pass and twists. But a pleasant moment is that here you do not need to knock out characters and pump them — all monetization is tied only to cosmetics. These are costumes for your hero, skins for a horse, pets, paints, accessories and unique abilities of heroes.
At the same time, I will not say that the emphasis on monetization through cosmetics forced the developers to make the basic items "scary" — on the contrary, there is enough here to decorate your character without investments. And some unique looks are obtained exclusively for your merits in various game modes, for example in PvP, — which will allow you to stand out among those who will not succeed as much as you.
In this sense, Where Winds Meet stands out pleasantly from its competitors: the game does not impose a donation — if you want, you can play for months without spending a ruble, and you will not lose anything fundamental, except, perhaps, a couple of especially beautiful outfits.
However, the complete absence of pressure does not mean the absence of temptation, so if you have difficulty avoiding impulsive spending, it is better to avoid the project in advance and remember that no matter how gentle the monetization system is, it remains part of the overall service ecosystem that determines the rhythm of the game.
Rewards, seasonal passes, dozens of currencies, leveling restrictions — all this reminds us that Where Winds Meet is not only a pleasant adventure, but also a conditionally free platform that they plan to develop and "milk" for years.
Diagnosis
Where Winds Meet is a very strange project. On the one hand — it is the most standard online RPG with seasonal development, grind, events and dozens of systems that flash notifications and call on the road for another portion of quick dopamine. On the other hand — a rather generous embodiment of Chinese heroic fantasy with an expressive combat system, a large (even now) world and an uncompromising immersion in Chinese history and culture. This is a large, sometimes spectacular, sometimes downright luxurious open-world project that is certainly able to interest, especially given that the entrance ticket is zero.
But it is hampered by the fact that it is trying to be everything at once: a historical RPG, an online sandbox, a social MMO, an amusement park, a platform for PvP and surprise with a variety of other entertainment — separate or related. The project at the start spreads in width faster than it manages to deepen, and therefore many mechanics look more like ridiculous sketches than like well-developed ideas. What will happen next — it's hard to say.
If you have been waiting for a large game about wuxia, based on Chinese history, martial arts and cultivation — there are simply no alternatives to Where Winds Meet on the market. If you are interested in these activities, if you share the philosophy of cultivation — you can safely try it. If not — all these activities can also be safely ignored, and this, in my opinion, is a definite plus.
However, if right now you are interested exclusively in a single-player adventure, with an emphasis on exploration and battles with bosses in the style of a simplified Sekiro, then it is better to wait. For example, when the developers expand the game with story content, and at the same time, perhaps, refine some technical roughness and finally translate the project into Russian. As an open-world grind, the game is made qualitatively and wisely, but understanding it, of course, would be easier in your native language.
