You might remember Where Winds Meet as the open world Wuxia RPG that mixes scenes of exquisite calligraphy with scenes of hooligan sword masters subjecting blameless bears to sonic bombardment, paralysing whole gangs of chimney sweeps with chained Blink attacks, and getting chased by angry geese.
If you don’t, you can watch the below trailer or read Ed Thorn’s (RPS in peace) preview from 2023, in which he commented “I’m both excited to see more and a tad worried it could end up being a disjointed, overstretched mash”. Then you can consider signing up to the game’s next playtest, which runs from July 25th to July 30th.
Watch on YouTube
The playtest introduces the city of Kaifeng, “with over one million square meters to discover”, plus “10,000 NPCs” to befriend, pickpocket, punch (perhaps because they’ve witnessed you pickpocketing) and bother for quests. I’m not clear on whether this means 10,000 individually modelled NPCs, or 10,000 NPCs on screen, or just 10,000 NPCs in total. The figure seems meaningless without context. I should probably delete that line. Ah, but then I’d have to rewrite all this. Argh, let’s keep going.
Expect “sharp contrasts – from the luxury of Fanlou Golden Street to struggling slums, from grand palaces to the mysterious ghost market”. Also, “a range of classic Chinese activities”, including bathhouse visits and traditional opera. The city will change in response to your actions: “abandoned wheat fields may flourish again, and rundown streets can become lively neighborhoods”. Sounds like a lot of Video Game, but I’m mostly here to mess people up with a brolly.
The developers are Everstone Studio, and the publishers are NetEase, who’ve been making waves recently with their bigger-budget productions and also, with their rumoured layoff plans. Fancy that playtest? It’ll run on Steam, but you need to sign up via this page.
