At the recent PlayStation State of Play, Where Winds Meet showed off a new gameplay trailer, offering looks at the upcoming game. Here’s a look at what we currently know!
Overview
Where Winds Meet is an open-world action RPG set in tenth-century Ancient China, during the Ten Kingdoms Era. Developed by the Chinese studio Everstone Studios, the game has been in development for the past five years. It is scheduled for release on PC and PS5 sometime in 2025.
Gameplay And Combat Systems
The developers have said that Where Winds Meet will revolve around Wuxia—a genre of fiction featuring martial artists from ancient China performing superhuman feats, similar to what you might see in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of the Flying Daggers.
Players will assume the role of a young swordsman or swordswoman, mastering martial arts and sword techniques while shaping their destiny. The game will feature a combination of melee combat and swordplay, potentially with various skill trees.
Weapons confirmed so far include the spear, sword, fan, dual blades, umbrella, and glaive—all traditional Chinese warrior weapons. Additionally, players can acquire martial arts skills by observing and mimicking animals, such as breathing fire like a dragon or roaring like a lion.
Combat is expected to be fast-paced with a focus on parrying and counter-attacks, drawing comparisons to Sekiro in terms of its parry system and boss battles.
World
Unlike the more linear world of Sekiro, Where Winds Meet promises a vast, open world with diverse regions. The PlayStation Store listing mentions 20 distinct regions, each featuring unique themes, historical landmarks, and cultural elements inspired by Chinese history.
The game will also include NPCs with their own questlines, puzzles—ranging from straightforward to environmental traversal—and the mystical power of Qinggong, allowing characters to run up cliffs or across water at high speeds.
Where Winds Meet is set to include dungeons featuring a variety of enemies and themes, with unique bosses awaiting at the end of each. These dungeons are expected to offer both solo and co-op options according to hints in the PS Store listing.
While the prospect of exploring these dungeons is exciting, there is always the concern that expansive open worlds might become cluttered or overly complex. It’s crucial for the game to balance its vastness with meaningful content, avoiding an overload of markers or unnecessary elements, something that is all too frequent in today’s open world games.
Enemies and Bosses
The gameplay trailer showcased various bosses, including a giant fish and enemies with supernatural martial arts powers. Expect additional bosses inspired by Chinese mythology.
Online Play and Co-Op
Where Winds Meet will offer both solo and multiplayer experiences, with support for up to three friends in co-op mode. While details on multiplayer progression and PvP features are still yet to be confirmed, the game’s PS Store listing confirms these elements will be part of the final release.
Story
For the story of Where Winds Meet, it does appear to be a big focus for the game but they have been abit tight lipped and rightfully so.
Everstone have said that this period provides a lot of opportunity for story telling, allowing for this young hero to shape their destiny as they navigate this turbulent era.
Previous Closed Beta
Where Winds Meet did have a closed beta earlier in the year with some details releasing on what the game had according to play testers. According to anonymous reports, combat was definitely similar to Sekiro with it’s parry focus and had a tight combat system.
The game did seem to be slightly overloading with game systems during its opening hours. Offering a large number of systems to do with furthering your martial arts prowess and the different ways you could do this. Player activities did seem to have their own currency which may be a red flag as if there is multiple different currencies, there may be an addition of micro-transactions in the future.
Although this may all change as this was a closed beta!
Where Winds Meet is releasing on PS5 and they are also looking to support DualSense with Everstone’s quote as per below.
“We will, of course, be optimizing the game control for PlayStation and for the PS5 DualSense controller, allowing users to navigate the martial arts mysteries and moves for a seamless and unforgettable adventure.”
So all of this does sound promising! A grand open world based on Chinese history full of opportunities for exploration, learning supernatural martial arts and a combat system that is fast, frantic and has a tight parry combat focus.
We will get more details over time with multiplayer and the game overall but I’m excited to see what else is to come. Let me know in the comments what you think so far, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on this as we get closer to release!
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