Where Winds Meet Closed Beta Impressions
Where Winds Meet’s final beta test before launch has come to a close, and I’ve spent the last few days playing it. This has no set release thus far, but will be a timed-exclusive on PS5. Seeing as it’s already been out in China for a while, it’s fair to guess the full release is imminent. Where Winds Meet is one of the handful of Eastern releases, alongside Phantom Blade Zero and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, that have had a spot on a PlayStation Showcase or two.
However, outside of its flashy visuals and ancient China setting, I wasn’t sure exactly what Where Winds Meet would be. Turns out, it’s a free-to-play open-world RPG that focuses on Wuxia-style combat and multiplayer elements. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is. After several hours playing, I’ve come away perplexed, but that’s not inherently a bad thing.
At its core, Where Winds Meet probably has the single most accessible approach to that Koei Tecmo-style of action combat. Think of the Nioh series, Rise of the Ronin or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, with its blistering pace and precise parrying mechanics, throw in a handful of learnable special moves, difficulty options, and multiple assist settings, and you’ve got this game.
You also have a staggering amount of resources to seek out and collect, multiple units of currency, all of which I had no clue what they did just yet. Alongside NPCs that can give you side quests or build relationships with by using an in-game chat system, using AI to respond to your typed-out messages, again, I had no clue what that did.
World of Wuxia Craft
And to top it all off, you have dungeons to explore in the open world or events that occur with or without your intervention – and this is thrown at you all at once. It’s fair to say I was overwhelmed by it all, but I’ve also been out of the free-to-play online open world games for a while, so my gaming sensibilities could be misaligned with the current trend. The game takes place during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era, a time when there were many dynastic empires fighting for overall rulership.
Again, something I’m not familiar with, but it’s fertile ground for a dynamic open world with many styles of bosses to overcome, which Where Winds Meet has plenty of. As a descendant of a dynasty, your created character is on a journey to fight every faction and learn from them to become an ultimate warrior and hopefully find out more about their past.
At least I think that’s what’s going on; there’s no audio language outside Chinese, and the subtitles are in a bit of a rough spot during the Beta. Text size is tiny, disappears in a flash, with incredibly verbose and expositional dialogue, so I was trying to gauge the story as well as cope with the ludicrous amount of tutorials for mechanics I barely saw again in my hours of gameplay.
Little Trouble
But I kind of want to get all my gripes out of the way, because, despite the many issues I had playing, I didn’t hate my time. Namely because of the combat and the world that Everstone Studios has crafted. It’s not graphically impressive, but the art direction is as exciting as some of its AAA peers. Detailed villages are bustling with people and environmental storytelling. Picturesque mountaintops showcase the world’s expansiveness, and there’s a nice variety of natural environments, from rivers, forests, and rock formations, making up the one region I explored.
There’s some unabashed Ghost of Tsushima influence in its world design, even down to the wind flowing in the direction of your quest markers. It’s to a shameless degree, but I can’t completely fault them. If you’re going to take influence, might as well take from one of the best. They could have taken a page from Tsushima’s subtlety, though, as Where Winds Meet throws so much open-world guff to distract you.
If I wasn’t stopping bandits from stealing a horse, I have an NPC goading me into conversation (of which there are an intense amount of), or shiny chests to open up. I genuinely felt like I had about 57 carrots dangled in front of me and a gluttonous appetite to get them all. This is not for a casual completionist; it’s a messy application of things to distract you into losing hours upon hours of your time.
Substance With Style
Its open world is a big factor in the overwhelming feeling I had when playing, it was inviting me in so many directions. I was learning all types of things like new martial art techniques to use in environmental puzzles, solving secrets from a cat, getting distracted from the main quest line with side quests; there really is a new thing to do every minute.
Holding up the weight of all this busywork is the combat. There are a handful of difficulties to pick from, with an assisted mode helping you get your parries by acting almost like a QTE. I played on normal as it says it’s the intended way to play, but there are a few levels higher that grant you exclusive unlocks upon defeating bosses on those difficulties.
This approach is something other games should take note of, as it’s got a little something for everyone whilst retaining a consistently engaging combat system. Like I mentioned before, it’s very much like Koei Tecmo’s recent action games. Enemy attacks hit hard, and attack patterns can be ferocious, so parrying, dodging, and reading moves are essential.
Parrying will degrade the enemy’s stance bar, which once depleted, will leave them open to a crushing blow. A perfect dodge slows down time, giving you a slight window for some free hits, and then you’ve got a handful of weapons from swords, polearms, dual swords, etc., that all have their own skills that you pull off with R2 + a face button.
Not Letting The Wind Pass
It’s extremely kinetic, and realises the Wuxia fantasy it’s going for. You can fly around with your dodge and jumps, pull off some exciting aerobatic moves that make you feel like the kind of cinema it’s going for. It’s close to a playable House of the Daggers with how versatile and flashy the combat is. My one problem with it is the camera.
For some reason, when you lock on, the camera is raised above you and your foes, giving a strange perspective I couldn’t quite get used to. I can see in a couple of instances where it goes slightly into muso territory, where hordes of enemies will come at you, but I much prefer the shoulder-level perspective other action games go for.
And that is how I found the Where Winds Meet Beta. There are still loads to unpack, like a unique levelling system that tests you in combat before reaching the next level. As well as martial arts that you’ll find across the world, an upgrade tree that’s fairly formulaic and stat-based. Like I said at the top, I was very overwhelmed, perplexed, but not disappointed.
There’s something somewhat exciting here, a live service that feels kind of AAA in its gameplay and open world offerings, with a monetisation focus on being purely cosmetic-based. There’s an emphasis on its fashion side of things, something very unique to free-to-plays. It’s going to be free-to-play, which is unheard of for a game that’s genuinely rich with gratifying gameplay, so Where Winds Meet may just be one to look out for.
Where Winds Meet has no release date but will be playable on PS5 first (preview platform)
Developer: Everstone Studios
Publisher: NetEase
Disclaimer: In order to complete this preview, we were provided with a promotional preview build of the game.
If you enjoyed this article or any more of our content, please consider our Patreon.
Make sure to follow Finger Guns on our social channels –Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Spotify or Apple Podcasts – to keep up to date on our news, reviews and features.
