WHERE WINDS MEET Review

The first thoughts that anyone would normally have when they learn about the existence of Where Winds Meet, would probably be something like "Free-to-play Chinese MMO, this means aggressively monetized gacha slop with infinite jank and in-game purchases that keep breaking my balls, no thanks I think I'll pass." However, the reality COULD NOT BE FURTHER FROM THIS. This is something that needs to be emphasized from the start, and will likely be repeated often throughout this review: Where Winds Meet, due to its nature, is a market paradox, I would say, a game that SHOULD NOT be free, and yet it is.

If we approached Where Winds Meet as we would any other game, we would probably describe it as a third-person open-world Action RPG in a "Chinese fantasy" setting. The latter refers to the game taking place in 10th-century China (so we're talking about a completely historical setting in terms of location, with real cities and regions), a turbulent period full of internal and external sociopolitical conflicts, a period during which young warriors and martial artists roamed the world to fight injustice and defend the weak. This is precisely the context summarized by the term "Wuxia," which literally translates as "martial heroes" and characterizes this fantasy genre and the works created within it.

Given the above, the game's protagonist and (fully customizable) character we control is one such anonymous warrior wandering the "jianghu" (another term used to describe the unknown, dangerous, and conflict-ridden world of this setting), unraveling his personal story, solving quests, and developing his combat skills along the way. More or less what we would expect from a typical "Western" Action RPG. Now that I think about it, given the setting and gameplay style, a brief but apt description of the game could be "a combination of Witcher 3 and the best open-world Assassin's Creed game that Ubisoft never created."

"Okay, AC games are one thing, but comparing a Chinese MMO game to one of the greatest games of our generation? That's blasphemy!" some fanatic looking for an opportunity to fight might say, but PLEASE BEAR WITH ME. I can honestly and unapologetically claim that the spirit of Witcher 3 lives and reigns supreme in WWM, adapted, of course, to the needs of the Wuxia genre. On one hand, in terms of writing, as we encounter well-written characters in the game with whom we connect emotionally, as well as truly gripping plotlines that deal with the pain, misery, and survival of ordinary people amid the dangers of the jianghu, as well as more humorous and lighthearted quests. On the other hand, in terms of gameplay, we have similar 3rd person combat (again adapted to the exaggerations of the Wuxia setting, so instead of witcher signs we have spectacular martial abilities, lightning-fast weapon movements, and supernatural jumps), as well as the super-addictive drug that is exploring the world.

The latter may be the reason why I got so hooked on the game, having already spent dozens of hours playing it. The HUGE world of WWM is so massively packed with content that exploring it ends up being a series of constant dopamine shots. Just as in Witcher 3 there were question marks on the world map as a corresponding fix, so in WWM we encounter all kinds of enemies scattered throughout the world, side quests of varying duration and depth, treasures, crafting materials, dungeons that offer both loot and new martial abilities, stealth missions, world puzzles, collectibles, lore items, enemy outposts (most of which offer the optional RP ability to conquer them without battle, through infiltration), mini-bosses, and world bosses.

Is that not enough for you? Consider the mini-games as an added bonus. WWM offers dozens of different activities in the form of separate mini-games (fishing, hunting, music, mahjong, wrestling, other card games, drinking games, puzzle solving, rhetoric battles, healing, taming wild horses, and more) based on either QTEs, card games, or simple logic, the successful completion of which offers in-game currencies, loot, and increases our character's attributes, while unlocking other abilities that help in exploration and combat.

Also add the seperate gameplay mechanics for crafting and trading, together with increasing our character's abilities by studying martial arts schools depending on the weapons we want to wield. Add Professions (2 for now, but they will likely increase in the future). Add combat challenges and battle arenas. Add Bounty Hunting, against computer or player opponents. Add player housing in the "big city," with the ability to build our own custom houses ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD (when playing on single-player, obviously) as if we were playing Fallout 4. Add the beautiful graphics, and the world which simply invites you to get lost in it (I should also note that despite the high quality of the graphics, my PC ran the game super-smoothly). And ALL THIS, PLUS MUCH MORE, IN A GAME THAT IS FREE-TO-PLAY, I REPEAT. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, BUT THAT'S HOW IT IS.

Of course, the game's co-op/multiplayer nature should also be mentioned. WWM can be played as an exclusively single-player game 99% of the time (the other 1% is if we catch a very serious illness that cannot be cured by the in-game doctors, in which case we have to switch to online mode and find a player who has leveled up their medical profession enough to heal us—there are plenty such players, and they often offer to heal us as soon as they see us), but it also features significant MMO elements. So, if we select the appropriate command in our character's menu, we enter the "shared" world where other players from around the world roam left and right.

The Main Story quests can only be completed while playing Solo. But apart from that, in Online mode we can explore the world with our friends or random players, killing mobs, completing side quests, playing mini-games, or simply chilling out in the countryside. There is a PVP component in the form of PVP arenas, and there are also some specific co-op only events as well as challenges that involve fighting co-op or defeating a world boss in a group of 2 to 5 players. There are also some completely optional but quite fun activities that can only be completed by interacting with other players. Of course, there is also the option to form player guilds, which offer a whole other set of unique gameplay possibilities.

As a Multiplayer F2P title, WWM obviously has its own in-game stores with various currencies (some of which also drop as loot in the world), as well as the option to purchase a Battle Pass. Fortunately, I was happy to find that these factors do not turn the game into a pay-to-win experience. The vast majority of items in the Stores are cosmetics, and all the rest are tomes and materials that we can collect anyway in the world just by playing the game (and in fact, these have a weekly "cap" and finite stocks in the store, so it is not possible for someone to buy, for example, 5,000 martial arts tomes and develop their character disproportionately). I should also mention that, once again fortunately, the in-game stores have not been implemented in an extremely aggressive way, so we don't see constant pop-up windows flying left and right referring us to the store. Beyond that, whether someone plays the game completely for free or buys anything, they will have the same experience, the same progress in their character's development, and the same limitations.

Of course, the objective flaws in this (FREE-TO-PLAY, I REPEAT) game, which is otherwise overloaded with quality content, must also be pointed out. The main one is something that I am told often happens in Chinese MMOs, and that is none other than the completely chaotic organization of the menus and submenus. There are at least 5 different tabs for displaying the various types of quests in the world. The inventory, equipment, and crafting sub-sections are all in different places and in separate tabs and sub-tabs, while the character's gear and abilities are also broken down into 4-5 different tabs. Current events, dailies, and challenges are scattered across I don't even know how many places, as are achievements, which even offer in-game currency as a reward if we "check them off" from the appropriate menu, but I didn't even notice that I completed many of them, so I wander around the menus and randomly find that I should get money from challenges and achievements that I completed god knows when. Without exaggeration, several times I started browsing the menus to find a piece of information that I remember seeing... once, somewhere, but in the end I didn't find it and just gave up. In general, the game is packed with content, but when it comes to organizing information about that content, it doesn't do very well, to be honest.

Another potential flaw is that, despite its full release and overload of content, the Main Quest is still incomplete. I realized that the developers have implemented the story up to about Chapter 2, and every 5 days they release an extra Quest for that chapter. Obviously, there's plenty of other stuff to do in the meantime, but seeing a "the story continues next week" message brings you back to the reality that you're not playing a purely single-player game.

Τhere is a similar "cut-off" in the character's leveling itself. My character had reached level 50 the day before this review was posted, and had to complete a challenge to move up to levels 51-55, but the game informed me that this challenge "will be unlocked on the 22nd of November." And, logically, the challenge for levels 56-60 will also open a few days after that. On one hand, I understand that we are still at the beginning of the game's journey, and this prevents a character who plays 400 hours a day from becoming disproportionately powerful so early. On the other hand, however... I want to level up, man. It is my constitutional right; our ancestors fought bloody wars for our right to level up.

Finally, it is important to highlight a feature that is at the same time ingenious and also controversial to say the least. The game makes extensive use of AI, but not in the way one might expect. We won't see AI-generated assets and environments or anything like that, but... AI NPCs. There are NPCs in the world with whom we can earn (optional) rep, and gaining rep with them requires us to talk with an AI CHATBOT that adopts the personality traits of each NPC, and write the appropriate text to convince them to see us in a positive light. On one hand, I found it quite entertaining, for example, to try to convince a bandit with my own words to give up banditry, and for him to inform me during the conversation that he originally wanted to become a hero, but the local heroes made fun of him because of his stuttering, so he became a bandit out of spite. On the other hand... I don't know, something doesn't sit quite right with this; there's a sense of AI dystopia hovering over this implementation.

The above is an attempt just to scratch the surface of Where Winds Meet. It is practically impossible to refer in detail to all the gameplay subsystems and all content categories, but even so, I hope that those who did not know what the game is about got a little taste of it. A game that, I repeat, against all logic, is FREE-TO-PLAY.

We are still in the early stages; the game was released on Steam on the 14th of this month and, despite its quality, it is still uncertain whether we will still be talking about it in the long run. However, the signs are positive. WWM is evolving and constantly being enriched, despite the sheer amount of content it already has. There is also a questionnaire in the game for sending feedback, which the developers seem to be actively seeking. After spending more than 60 hours on it at the time of writing this review, I am officially more than ready to welcome our Chinese gaming overlords. Where Winds Meet is an unexpected gem from the East and, contrary to its very nature, is full of heart and soul that we rarely see in Western games. Throw me into the jianghu and leave me there forever.

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