Where Winds Meet is a beautiful, ambitious open-world RPG that just isn't for me

"How can you expect anyone to love you" - I say to an NPC shadowboxing just outside of a small temple - "if you don't love yourself?" He's fretting about not having found a wife yet and has pinned his relationship troubles to a lack of success in his personal life. I can type to this NPC, who then replies with the oddly specific yet hollow tone of an AI chatbot, as I desperately try to talk sense into him.

He doesn't respond well to my well-meaning attempts at instilling some self-worth, and eventually, wordlessly, he turns on me. I am, of course, a mega martial arts man, so I dispatch him without trouble. The interaction is bizarre, pointless, and leaves me feeling a little strange. So, Where Winds Meet.

Billed as an epic open-world free-to-play action-adventure RPG,  Everstone and NetEase's Where Winds Meet is all of that, plus an MMO, with a side-dish of gacha. That's a mouthful, I'm sure you'll agree, and after playing a fair few hours of the recent playtest, it also doesn't come close to capturing the sheer amount of stuff thrown my way.

We start with a tone-setting on-rails sequence. Our hero is assailed from all sides as they try to escape with some precious cargo. There's a baby, a horse chase, and a beautiful vista overlooking the ancient Chinese Wuxian landscape. I'm pleasantly surprised by the quality of the environment, even if I don't quite have time to take it all in. It's simple, it's effective, and it doesn't last.

Once Where Winds Meet starts to settle into a rhythm, I start to feel very, very old. Several soft tutorials show you the ropes over the next few hours, with combat making way for abilities, abilities making way for Mystic Arts - there's a section called Puzzle Arts? Grey matter begins to leak from my ears. There is so much stuff that I can barely keep up.

If you've ever listened to a die-hard Destiny fan explain their inventory, you'll have experienced a fraction of the confusion I felt when I opened Where Winds Meet's menu. Currencies are numerous, and inventory space is filled with trinkets of unknown use. There are skill trees and development paths that go far beyond what I'm willing to understand this early on.

The assault on my memory wasn't instant, but it wasn't long before the barrage of information just washed over me, like a wave filled with attack stat percentages. Combat felt good to the point where I could do but didn't understand. Soulslike muscle memory carried me a fair way, but struggling to engage in the game's intricate systems made many battles fall flat.

Where Winds Meet looks lovely, there's no mistaking it, but as you can see in the image above, the screen is often filled with white text, reminiscent of an MMO. NPCs have names and titles that float above their person, and there's a global chat in the bottom-left corner. Area-specific messages scroll across the top of the screen, informing me of an event, and I'm frustrated that this apparently pertinent information is obscuring the beautiful sunset.

There is an 'immersion' button you can toggle, which rids the screen of any clutter. It gave me a brief respite and a shot of clarity, but when active, I didn't know which way I was supposed to be heading to complete my mission. I felt immersed, but listless, and had to toggle the noise back on to get my bearings before coming back up for air.

I understand that a lot of these are likely 'me' problems, but I expect there are at least a few of 'me' out there who may feel the same way. Not forged in the fire of free-to-play, I'm alienated by the cynicism of elongating playtime (the dev claims there's already 150 hours of content here) to encourage spending a few dollars in one of the several in-game stores. You aren't required to spend anything, mind, but any hope of a tight narrative is seemingly dashed in the hopes that you might.

This is all to say that a negative for me could very likely be a positive for you - it's obvious, but I feel compelled to say it. Where I see faff, you might see value, and I love that. My takeaway from Where Winds Meet is that it is a capable, beautiful action soulslike with the standard free-to-play weights attached. It's for those willing to give themselves over to a world, who want an endless supply of Things To Do, and don't mind the trappings that come with it.

The Where Winds Meet release date is expected in 2025, so keep your eyes on PCGamesN to make sure you don't miss it.