By
Ben Brosofsky
Published 19 minutes ago
Ben Brosofsky has been writing for Screen Rant since 2022 and editing since 2024. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor's in Cinema & Media Arts. Writing serves as a much-needed distraction from tackling a backlog of Steam games that will never be surmounted.
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I'm not really one for gacha games. It's not necessarily the monetization itself, as long as there isn't a baseline expectation that you'll pay to make any progress. I've spent my life thus far avoiding in-game purchases, and I'm perfectly comfortable spending some time in a gacha game while ignoring all the shop options. All that monetization, however, usually has cascading effects.
Somewhere in the sea of currencies and daily quests, I start to drown beneath a piling sense of exhaustion. Honkai: Star Rail has its charms, but there are only so many menus I can click through before I start to feel like I'm working a job. Eventually, I tend to burn out, falling back into the embrace of games with simpler systems of motivation. If there's ever been a chance that I stick it out for the long haul, though, Where Winds Meet is the game that could make it happen.
Wuxia Inspirations Make Where Winds Meet Unique
Where Winds Meet is by no means immune from my typical gacha complaints. Along with an expansive wuxia fantasy, the new RPG delivers an unending shuffle of UI prompts and miscellaneous rewards. A sense of elegance is inherent to the wuxia genre, but Where Winds Meet struggles to marry that sensibility with the trademark overstimulation of gacha game design.
If I wasn't more attracted to the game's innate promise, I would have brushed it off. I'm a big fan of wuxia, however, with films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and A Touch of Zen ranking among my all-time favorites. Wuxia stories revolve around martial arts, but they stand apart from average action movies. Ballet-like choreography and stories brimming with quiet philosophy define the best works of the genre, and these sensibilities could be just as impactful in games as they have been in literature and film.
Take a moment to disable the UI, and Where Winds Meet's command of these possibilities becomes clear. Other gacha games already echo the elegance of wuxia movement, with Genshin Impact and Infinity Nikki embracing the floaty movement and grand gestures innate to the form. Whether it's because of their Chinese origin or simply a practical choice to make phone-based gaming feel intuitive, the genres were already mildly interlinked.
Where Winds Meet Is Constantly Creative
Rather than dancing around wuxia, Where Winds Meet gets to embrace it wholesale. Armed with swords, umbrellas, and fans, the player character can tap into a seemingly endless suite of graceful attacks. Every move has utility, but flavor and style feel like equally important prerogatives. You can spam an enemy with light attacks, but you can also freeze them with a spiritual form of acupuncture or toss them into a river with tai chi learned from watching a bear attack a beehive.
Stepping outside of combat further widens the scope of possibilities. The same spiritual acupuncture can make friendly NPCs laugh or itch, even when it serves no purpose beyond the player's amusement. Traversing the landscape offers the opportunity to run up walls or glide out of stylish double jumps with the help of an umbrella. Video games have long had a disregard for gravity, and Where Winds Meet picks up the gauntlet and runs with it.
The best thing, however, is the game's penchant for idiosyncrasies. I had some fun with Infinity Nikki earlier this year, but its whimsy rarely veered into truly off-the-wall fantasy. Where Winds Meet embraces the unexpected with more eagerness. A lot of its most charming interactions are easy to miss. Drink from the wrong jug, for example, and you'll turn into a dog, after which you can pick up a game of mahjong with other canines. Fall in with a group of half-naked runners, and you'll be thrust into a minor mini-game of spirited shouts for a few laps.
Where Winds Meet Shows What Gacha Games Could Be
So far, Where Winds Meet's ability to surprise has given me the fortitude to tune out its constant barrage of gacha noise. Hopefully, that balance won't fall apart. Where Winds Meet is promising that monetization will always focus on cosmetics, making a free-to-play experience perfectly comfortable. Without the character roster of Genshin Impact or the fundamental cosmetic focus of Infinity Nikki, it should be easier to avoid FOMO without coughing up cash.
I know how these things go, and the odds that I fall off sooner or later are still pretty high. Even so, I've already had a better time with it than anything else in the gacha market. If I do burn out, I'm hoping that the fatigue won't bury the good experience so far, allowing me to hold onto the generally warm memories I'm creating with the game.
Where Winds Meet isn't chasing Genshin's anime-inspired coattails, but striking out in a direction that few games localized in the West have yet embraced. If this is the future of gacha games, I might actually have to start paying attention.
Where Winds Meet
10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed Action RPG Wuxia Open-World Systems
OpenCritic Reviews
Top Critic Avg:
73/100
Critics Rec:
62%
Released
November 14, 2025
ESRB
Teen / Use of Alcohol, Violence, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact
Developer(s)
Everstone Studio
Publisher(s)
NetEase, Inc.
Engine
Proprietary
5 Images
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Genre(s)
Action RPG, Wuxia, Open-World
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