Political strife, regional turbulence, and endless opportunities to test your mettle against worthy opponents in a land where living by the blade is the only sure way to survive. That’s what Where Winds Meet aims to bring to life with a wuxia-based action adventure set in the later years of the Chinese Song Dynasty.
And while the martial arts that use a wuxia-based combat loop are an entertaining addition, this isn’t a game that gets you from one brutal fight to another. Instead, it gently nudges you towards a destiny in which your prowess with a weapon is only one facet of the hero you’re trying to become. Where Winds Meet isn’t just about fighting in its world. It’s about living in it.
It’s an open world whose sheer size and scope has me eagerly waiting to explore every corner of its vast regions, of which there might even be more than twenty of. Seeing the game in motion has given me many reasons to be utterly excited to dive in with the rest of you.
Here’s why I believe that the excitement is justified.
A World That Sticks
The world you’re let loose into in Where Winds Meet is the perfect representation of a land that’s been thrown into turmoil by mankind’s interference. There’s both peace and chaos to be found as you make your way through Qinghe and Kaifeng, the game’s starting areas.
While Qinghe is an immediate stunner with its lush fields, serene countryside, and a host of mountain trails, caves, rivers, and ancient ruins to discover, it’s a vast land that can have you lost in its many wonders. Aside from a colorful, resplendent showcase of just how visually impressive Where Winds Meet really is, there’s a calm in the air around Qinghe, disrupted only by players who happen to find swords drawn as a result of their actions.
By contrast, Kaifeng is a bustling beautiful city, a massive urban heart that beats with the life it supports. Its markets, rooftops, and the general air of cultural depth it presents to you as you walk through its streets seem to hum with opportunities, no matter your goals for being there. It’s hard not to duck into the nearest alley just to see what’s at the end of it. You never know what you might find.
When you couple such worlds with the game’s overall visual framework of realistic architecture, dynamic weather and day/night cycles, and a general layer of authenticity that the developers have baked into the experience, this is an open world that not only ranks up there with the best ones there are, but manages to bring its own tricks to the table.
How does it manage that? We’re glad you asked.
The Land Also Lives Outside Of You
It’s easy to find open worlds in which their populations might seem dense, but are never truly alive. Thankfully, Where WInds Meet goes the other way, weaving its narrative into the world in ways that make it feel like it’s more of a character than merely a stage for its actors. There are different political factions vying for power and influence, and loose cannons like yourself looking to carve their names into a very turbulent time frame.
But it’s also a world in which life thrives outside of mankind’s petty squabbles. Early on in the adventure, I came across a bear expressing no small amount of frustration on a tree. Observing the bear soon turned into a teachable moment, my character brushing up on some tai chi and unlocking the ability to hurl large objects as projectiles.
On other occasions, I found myself jumping off my horse to try my hand at hunting or fishing, taking a moment to be one with the natural world that’s been so painstakingly created. Of course, there are duels and bosses to be found, and even random encounters with morally grey choices that can affect your adventure and the way your character is treated in specific situations.
In Where Winds Meet, life goes on and there are things to do irrespective of whether you, as a main character, uncover enough of it to actually find their value. It’s an exploration loop that reinforces your role as a wandering swordsman trying to make a mark on a canvas that’s yet to be fully completed.
However, there’s another facet to the open world that helps paint a complete picture of its efficacy at catching the attention of its players, and keeping them invested in what it’s offering.
The World Responds To Your Actions
Rounding out the pillars of how Where WInds Meet presents an open world experience that has you very invested right off the bat is in the way the world responds to you. Aside from your narrative choices having a bearing on how your story might end, there are other details that showcase how this is a world that continues to breathe even when you’re not looking.
The NPC AI does a fine job at keeping townsfolk, soldiers, travellers, and others in the world quite dynamic. There is banter between friends, a general air of apprehension around aggressive soldiers, and you never know what the next traveller you talk to could point you towards. The weather can change in a heartbeat, just as it would in the real world, and the game’s visuals make climbing animations look quite fluid and very real, and there are destructible environments that suitably respond to rash actions.
And of course, you never know where you’re going to pick up the next skill, weapon, or gear that carries you for the next several hours of the experience. It helps that traversal is so fluid and a pleasure to navigate the world with. I can see myself forgetting to fast-travel as I go about my business, enjoying the way my character just breezes along with animations that just refuse to get old. And I doubt that’s going to change anytime soon, at least for me. And given how the game encourages climbing, I’d say that’s a good thing.
The world’s verticality is so well-implemented I couldn’t help but smile fondly at the thought of Shadow of the Erdtree, while Qinghe’s open fields and vibrant colors took me right back to the moment Ghost of Tsushima put me on a horse and sent me on my path to a new kind of warfare.
Where Winds Meet brings all of these elements that form the lifeblood of an open world together in a way that makes its ambitious, large map feel like a true playground in which the deadliest warriors can forge their own destinies and learn a lot of valuable lessons along the way.
Rewarding Curiosity Through Exploration
The world in Where Winds Meet is one that doesn’t restrict its narrative to a few cutscenes. That’s a storytelling method that has perhaps outstayed its welcome thanks to the current generation of games weaving their stories into the worlds they create.
Fortunately, Where Winds Meet weaves the complex lore of its world into the very fabric of your map. Visiting locations that are off the beaten track let you uncover more about the game’s take on the Song Dynasty, and the events that have plunged it into the turmoil that signalled its decline.
The tension that such a decline could cause is woven into the way differing factions remain hostile to each other. It shows in the presence of wanderers such as ourselves free to take the law into our own hands if we so choose. There are warlords vying for power and influence, looking to fill any political vacuums that could arise.
All of these underlying narrative threads hide in plain sight, simply waiting for a tug from you to unravel and present you with hours of content that could have you ignoring the main campaign for a while before you decide to dive back in. It’s a way of building curiosity that I find very welcome in an open world adventure of this scale.
There’s a sense of anticipation that hits me every time the wind rustles through the leaves of a forest in Qinghe, or as I watch the light of a lantern bounce off the surface of a canal in Kangfei. It’s the unshakeable feeling that perhaps another hour or two exploring the area might yield something important, either for the main story or for my own character’s personal arc.
Where WInds Meet delivers a world that just clicked for me, having me very invested in exploring it until my eyes simply couldn’t stay open for me to see what was waiting for me around the next corner of Kangfei. It’s a world in which exploring feels organic enough to make you forget about your objectives and simply take life as it comes to you, as a true wanderer would do.
I can’t wait to uncover more of Qinghe and Kangfei, and I’m already grinning to myself as I think of the unknown regions that are yet to be revealed. Where Winds Meet is going to be a wild ride through a world might just have me wishing my console was a time travelling machine instead. I feel the same anticipation for its release as I did while exploring its truly amazing open world.
And that is this ambitious title’s biggest strength.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
