Where Winds Meet Review

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Where Winds Meet is a huge game in every way – its world, side activities, items to collect, and character customization are all incredibly extensive. While this scope is initially impressive and inviting, it also presents a challenge. There’s plenty of enjoyment to be found, but the game’s ambition sometimes prevents it from feeling fully focused and unified.

Wow, the first few minutes of Where Winds Meet totally blew me away! The prologue isn’t heavy on actual gameplay – it’s mostly quick-time events and a short boss fight – but it’s an incredible cinematic experience. The music is fantastic, and the graphics are absolutely stunning. It honestly felt like I was in a movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers. It’s a breathtaking start, but sadly, the game tries to do too much, and that ultimately holds it back from being truly great.

Where Winds Meet Excels in Its Visuals and Combat

Okay, so I just started playing Where Winds Meet, and wow, it’s stunning. We’ve seen pretty games before, but this one really uses the power of modern tech. The world is huge, but it’s not just big, it’s incredibly diverse. I’m talking peaceful rivers, massive waterfalls, lush bamboo forests, snowy peaks, busy cities, and quiet little villages – everything looks amazing. And the best part? It runs surprisingly well on my setup, even with all those gorgeous graphics!

While Where Winds Meet is a beautiful game, some minor technical problems occasionally pull you out of the experience. For example, character lip-syncing isn’t always perfect, and some animations look a bit stiff or old-fashioned. You might also see objects clipping through each other, especially on your character, which is understandable given the huge number of customization options. As a free-to-play game, it offers cosmetic items you can buy, leading to a vast wardrobe that’s difficult to fully animate. These small issues aren’t major, but they do slightly detract from the game’s otherwise stunning visuals.

The game’s character animations during conversations and cutscenes aren’t the strongest aspect, but the combat movement is excellent. The developers worked with renowned fight choreographer Stephen Tung Wai to create realistic martial arts, and it really shows. Each fighting style has unique stances and flows beautifully, making battles both visually impressive and incredibly satisfying to play.

The best part of Where Winds Meet is definitely its combat. It feels familiar to players of other open-world games, blending elements like the skillful parrying and dodging from Ghost of Tsushima with the quick, chaotic fights against many enemies seen in Marvel’s Spider-Man. The controls are responsive, the enemies provide a good challenge without being unfair, and you have lots of options for how to approach each fight.

The game lets you create a fighting style that’s all your own by combining different weapons like swords, spears, fans, and even unique options like umbrellas and rope darts. You can also master 12 different martial arts and 23 mystic arts, each with special moves and benefits in and out of battle. Plus, everything you choose can be upgraded, so you’ll always feel like you’re getting stronger and unlocking new possibilities as you play.

Some of Where Winds Meet’s Mechanics Are Not Nearly as Polished as Others

Okay, so the combat is seriously awesome, but honestly, everything else feels a little… lacking. A lot of the puzzles aren’t really puzzles at all – the game basically holds your hand and tells you exactly what to do with objective markers and stuff. It’s especially noticeable at the beginning, and while some of the later puzzles are a bit more challenging, it’s still a problem. A bunch of the side quests feel the same way – way too easy and not much of a mental workout. It’s a bit of a letdown, honestly, after how good the fighting is.

Players in Where Winds Meet can easily find out how to get or make anything simply by checking their inventory, and the same applies to unlocking new combat abilities. While this convenience might appeal to some, and the game does allow for different ways to progress, it diminishes the rewarding feeling of overcoming challenges. Knowing exactly what to do and where to go reduces the desire to explore and experiment. This is unfortunate, as the game’s world is impressively large and detailed, and could have made Where Winds Meet one of the best exploration adventure games if it had encouraged more player creativity and discovery.

The game offers different difficulty levels and lets you customize how much information appears on the screen. But even on the hardest setting with a minimal interface, the game still tends to tell you exactly what to do. Luckily, there’s plenty to explore and try out, though the game doesn’t really encourage you to find things on your own or experiment.

The game’s economy is quite generous, perhaps too much so. While some games, like Hollow Knight: Silksong, make you really earn your currency, Where Winds Meet gives it out very freely. There are lots of collectibles you can use to unlock cosmetic items, skills, and other upgrades, but it’s hard to feel excited about all the options when you’re constantly getting more than you need. Resources aren’t limited, and you earn money and experience easily, even for simple actions like petting a cat. This is good because you don’t have to grind, but it also makes unlocking new things less rewarding.

Where Winds Meet’s Massive Scale Ultimately Holds Itself Back

While Where Winds Meet offers a huge amount of content and things to do, this ultimately becomes its biggest weakness. You can easily lose hours to activities like fishing, playing music, or dungeon crawling, but most of these systems lack depth or a unique feel. Beyond some strong points in its world design, story, and combat, the game tries to do too much and doesn’t fully succeed in any one area.

The game features a huge number of characters you can chat with, but the way those conversations actually work feels restricted and awkward. There’s also a lot of character customization and skill progression, which unfortunately results in overly complicated menus.

Where Winds Meet has a lot going for it. The combat is excellent, the world is beautifully crafted, and it cleverly reinvents familiar RPG elements. Unlike some games, you actually have to earn your levels by completing challenges. The game’s sect system is a particularly strong feature, offering a detailed and immersive take on character origins – you’re bound by your sect’s rules, and the rewards and consequences are more nuanced than you typically see. However, these great features can sometimes feel lost amongst everything else happening in the game.

It’s easy to see why Where Winds Meet quickly became popular in China, attracting millions of players. The game offers something for almost everyone, and it’s easy to lose yourself in for hours. However, while it does a lot of things, it doesn’t truly excel at any one thing, so it probably won’t become a top pick for most players.

The game Where Winds Meet will be available on PC, mobile devices, and PlayStation 5 starting November 14, 2025. We received a PC code from the developers to evaluate the game for this review.

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2025-11-14 11:05