Looking For A Beautiful Open-World RPG That Will Keep You Busy? Where Winds Meet May Be The One

In just two days, on November 14, Everstone Studio and NetEase will be releasing the free-to-play open-world Wuxia game Where Winds Meet on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and PlayStation 5. (It’s available to pre-download today.) Ahead of the launch, I was invited to try out the action RPG. Being curious about the game since its initial reveal – and thinking it looked really pretty, I took them up on the offer.

It turns out I wasn’t wrong about the pretty part. The game is beautiful. It’s honestly a good thing there’s a camera feature, because some people will be spending a lot of time on that. The vast landscape and vistas, villages, and the one city so far are all photo-worthy. Even the caves and other underground areas are worth taking snapshots of. Of course, you’ll probably have to clear those areas out before breaking out your camera.

Being an open-world game, there’s a lot to discover. And I do mean a lot. It’s easy enough to go from point to point, marker to marker, but you can miss a lot. You’ll also find yourself unable to continue at certain points if your level isn’t high enough.

And really, many of the things you could easily overlook can offer more insight into the world around you. Listen in on people having conversations, and you might just get some information you’ll need later, or that will spawn an unknown quest. Some of the quests I stumbled across were surprising – granted, the most surprising ones seemed to have nothing to do with your main objective. But they were well written and really added to the life of the world.

You’ll run across some characters that you can chat with and make friends with. Other times, you’ll stumble across suspicious characters, and you have the option to follow in an effort to prevent their crimes. That is, if you want to get involved. You can also just elect to walk past both if that’s your preference. Other times, you’ll find yourself dealing with temperamental animals – like the really angry goose I found attacking a bear.

At this point, I can’t really say how many hours I’ve spent in the game, but I do know that it’s quite a few – I got sidetracked frequently – and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of everything it has to offer. Where Winds Meet is a combination of a single-player open-world game and a multiplayer offering, complete with guilds and guild activities.

Even if you spend most of your time playing solo, sooner or later you’re likely to find yourself needing to call on another player for a variety of reasons. In my case, it was because I’d injured myself in a way that the NPCs couldn’t heal and that I couldn’t deal with, despite having joined the Silver Needle sect to learn medicine. That’s just the way some of these things are.

Despite allowing players to have a solo experience, the game really does encourage being social. In addition to the things I mentioned above, it boasts things like weekly group dungeons and “casual co-op,” which features several activities players can do, ranging from doing a bit of group healing to scholarly meetings. You can also do some fitness training with a sect named Well of Heaven if you feel up to it.

To make all of this easier, you do have the option to join a guild. The dev team set the system up so that players can choose from three guild types, each catering to a playstyle. One focuses on more serious group content. Another focuses on leisure content, like card games. The third is for the explorers among us. That’s not to say that those options restrict players one what content they can play. But it does make it easier to find folks who want to do the same things you do.

I admit to not having spent time on the social aspects of the game. In my brain, all the social stuff is usually saved for when you have nothing else to do. You know me. I’m story-focused. Still, as mentioned above, there are times when you need other players, even if you’re concentrating on the solo content.

What I did spend a lot of time on, once I joined the Silver Needle sect, was running around healing NPCs. However, I almost immediately forgot what my sect leader told me about fair exchange – not treating people without making them pay – and was chastised for it. The sect also has a ranking, or report card, system where mistakes like that are available for everyone to see. So, uh… Maybe listen to your sect leader if you don’t want them to publicly shame you. Unless, of course, you plan on betraying them at some point. That is actually an option too.

As for the technical aspects of gameplay, Where Winds Meet is an open-world ARPG with MMO features. A game like that can attract a wide variety of players, so it makes sense that the dev team decided to provide players with plenty of options on how they want to go about playing the game.

Starting out, players will be asked to choose what kind of guidance they’d like. There are three tiers, each indicating the kind of player they are appropriate for, ranging from “Detailed” for MMO and action players to “Minimal” for those who don’t want the game to lead them. I went for the middle ground, “Moderate”. I do enjoy a good roam, but I don’t want to get so sidetracked that I never find my way to the next point. I got sidetracked anyway.

The game also offers the choice between ARPG and MMORPG controls. The difference is basically how you control the camera with the mouse. In all honesty, even if you’re playing on PC, I highly recommend using a controller for things like combat. I found myself going between the controller and mouse and keyboard depending on what I was doing. Sometimes it’s just easier to hit “M” for the map. But combat was much easier on the hands when using a controller.

The game also offers options for story difficulty and social preference. The former is pretty much what it sounds like: you can either enjoy the story with easier fights, or you can go the other way and make things as difficult for yourself as possible. The third option – the one I chose – was to go for the recommended option with balanced difficulty.

Social preference, on the other hand, lets you choose between being more social or going it (mostly) alone.

Once you get past all that, you get to design your character. And, as with everything else, that can be as easy or difficult as you want to make it. The game’s system allows you to tweak your character's look down to the facial muscles. I tend to avoid this because, without fail, I’ll make some sort of abomination and have no idea how we got there. So I did enough to create a character I was happy with and left the detailed stuff to better people than me.

That said, you will run across some questionable character models in the game. But I feel like that’s just the nature of games that allow that much customization on the faces. You’re going to run into uncanny valley territory.

Once you’re in-game and off on your journey, you’ll start picking up weapon skills. Technically, players can all carry and use three weapons at once. Two of those weapons you can swap out for others as you like. The third is always a bow. Considering you can use the bow while on a horse, it’s probably good that that’s your constant.

Other weapons include twin blades, a lance, a fan (which also does healing), and an umbrella, among others. Players can learn to use all these weapons over time, so the tough choice comes in with when you want to use them. That said, things like trials will usually make suggestions as to which weapon will be of more use.

In addition to weapons, players can earn more skills in other ways. One, as I mentioned earlier, is to join a sect that will teach you. Just be aware that doing so is actually considered a commitment by the game. Breaking the rules can have consequences. Another way to pick up skills is just by talking to people you run into on your journey. Some random dude will teach you the mystic art of stealing things without having to be near said things. Or, to put it another way, you’ll be able to use a bit of telekinesis.

Overall, I’d say the game does a good job of catering to a lot of different players. It was a little surprising to me when I first heard about this game that it would be a free-to-play offering. I think most people I spoke to were confused on that aspect as well. In a lot of ways, it feels like a single-player game. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s not a typical gacha game where we’re all out here gambling for waifus. We create our own character, and there are no husbands or wives being sold.

That said, the game does have something, and a lot of it. Fashion. Clothes, hats, hair, accessories, cosmetics, complete outfits… Some of it is available through the game. Some, players are going to have to drop premium currency on. And considering how good a lot of these outfits look – including the effects on some of them, I can see it happening. There were so many outfits I would love to have on my character.

Of course, you don’t have to have any of that to play the game. So you can experience the story and not drop anything. But devs have to eat, and this isn’t a one-off drop situation. So far, the game offers players two regions to explore, and there’s more on the way. If my experience is any indication, you could easily still be exploring when the first content update drops.

Because of that, this is probably going to be one of the games I approach in a more relaxed way. Rather than trying to be ready when the next update hits, I’ll just go with the flow and see where it takes me. But I will be playing it. It’s officially on the list.

As mentioned at the start, the game launches on November 14. But those interested can pre-load the game on PC today. Instructions on how to do that can be found on the official site. Unfortunately, Steam isn’t included in that.

For those who’d like to play on console, the game will also be available on PS5. And yes, there will be cross-progression. Details on how to make that work will be available on the site as well.