With the recent release of Where Winds Meet, developer Everstone Studio has once more reiterated its plans to never introduce pay-to-win microtransactions to the free-to-play game. As caught by GamesRadar, a since-deleted social media post by a player who noticed an in-game welcome message revealed the studio’s reiteration.
In its welcome message, the developer asks players to enjoy playing what they enjoy while ignoring the things that they don’t. As the message says, “play what you love, ignore what you don’t,” before going on to note that the game will reward players for their own in-game choices, rather than forcing them to make choices for the rewards.
“Our monetization focuses on appearances, battle passes, and monthly passes,” wrote the company in its welcome message. “Let us be crystal clear: there is no [pay-to-win] here. Your legend is written by skill and choice, never by wallet size. We will never sell power. We will never compromise the integrity of combat and gameplay for profit. This is our promise.”
The monetisation behind Where Winds Meet has been a question leading up to the title’s release for some time now. Since it’s a free-to-play title, the game is expected to have microtransactions in order for the developers to recoup its costs. While many players are completely fine with paying for these microtransactions in exchange for unique cosmetic items, or potentially even DLC releases, players start getting hostile to the idea if a game starts allowing in-game power to be something that can be bought with real-world money.
Where Winds Meet was released earlier this month on PC and PS5. Since its release, the open-world action RPG has proven itself to be an incredible hit. The studio announced just a few days after release that it had gotten more than 2 million players in its first 24 hours alone. This statistic got it a spot in the top 3 best-selling games list on the PlayStation Store across seven different regions. Even the PC version has been enjoying quite a bit of popularity; at the time of writing, Where Winds Meet sits in third place in the top-selling games list.
Leading up to the release of Where Winds Meet, Everstone Studio had released a launch trailer that got players excited for the title’s take on a Wuxia-themed open-world RPG. The trailer showcased some of the regions that players would get to visit as they explored China during the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. We also got to see some of the thousands of NPCs that players can interact with, as well as the massive Kaifeng City.
The developer had also revealed quite a few details about the Martial Arts systems in Where Winds Meet, which offers players a host of choices with regards to what kinds of weapons they would like to use, ranging from the sword and spear, to the Mo blade, the umbrella, the fan, and the rope dart.
For more details about Where Winds Meet, check out our thoughts on why gamers can’t stop playing it. Also check out our review while you’re at it.
