Where Winds Meet

A stunning ingame world filled with tons of entertaining tasks is clashing with too many systems that suffocate Where Winds Meet.

Where Winds Meet is a game that has incredible highs and extreme lows. It has wonderful boss fights that make the combat shine, showcasing that with the right mechanical skill, you can make an intense fight an amazing spectacle. The combat and exploration are the highlights as a whole, but when you’re not in a boss fight, you’ll be exploring, doing puzzles and experiencing the main story. All of which are serviceable, especially as a free-to-play game, but they could have most certainly been handled in a way that makes them more enjoyable. The co-op modes are limited, requiring you to get through a decent chunk of the game before they are something that you and friends can play through and enjoy. Even with all the issues, it isn’t a bad game by any means, and it's fun when you get to the in-depth and interesting portions. It does end up being somewhat limited by the format chosen by the developer, making it difficult to enjoy every minute that you do end up playing.

It's not surprising that Where Winds Meet drew millions of players after its initial release in China. Almost anyone can find something they enjoy in it, and there's enough there to sink hours into. But as a jack of all trades and master of none, it won't likely be many people's favorite.

Where Winds Meet is a massive, gorgeous wuxia adventure that’s fun whether you want to play solo or engage with the community. Combat is fun, the world is beautifully realized, and the storytelling is engaging. Some of the systems can feel a little clunky, but not in a way that would turn players away. Where Winds Meet tells a huge, sweeping story that’ll keep you busy for 150+ hours or more, and with weapons ranging from swords and rope darts to umbrellas and fans, this has all the trappings to let you live out your fantasy as the hero in your own martial arts epic.

Where Winds Meet tries to do too many things at once, which ends up in a way typical for this approach – there are many activities and mechanics, but none of them are particularly impressive.

There is a shocking amount of things to do in Where Winds Meet. If you’re into gacha or are just okay with trying something for free that is pretty rough around the edges, Where Winds Meet does have a lot of content that can be fun to engage in, especially with friends. If you’re just looking for a solo adventure with a good story to digest and cool combat, you’ll probably be let down, as Where Winds Meet doesn’t quite hit the highs that plenty of other games do in the action RPG genre.

We can't help wondering if a narrowing of scope, instead of crowbarred-in construction mechanics or a baffling option to interact with NPCs that function like in-world AI chatbots, may have given this fiction real room to breathe. For now, there are too many winds blowing in different directions. [Issue#418, p.108]

Perhaps there’s a version of Where Winds Meet that isn’t throttled by the storm of its own lofty aspirations. It has a great understanding of what makes wuxia such a compelling subgenre of fantasy fiction, bleeding into the vibrancy of it’s characters and the flair of its combat. But it becomes clear pretty quickly that the attempt to shove many different kinds of experiences into one game – open world adventure, action-heavy MMO, musical rhythm game, card battler, etc. – only ensures that none of these elements reach their full potential. Instead, Where Winds Meet is an amusement park where every ride is being run at half speed, and the sugary treats at the concession stands come with piles of paperwork to complete before you can chow down.