WINDSO F CHANGE
Exploring Everstone’s extravagant plan to put China at the centre of the open-world map
By Simon Parkin
Game Where Winds Meet Developer Everstone Studio Publisher NetEase Format PC, consoles TBA Release 2024
On a hilltop overlooking the lingering plains of Qinghe, the brightest and most beflowered vision of the Chinese countryside a person could imagine, there stands an academic archer. Feng Jishen wears flowing robes toxd match the waterfall of sleek black hair that spills from his topknot. He came to Qinghe, he explains to your character, a lithe and acrobatic swordsman with a generational score to settle, to study the local flora and fauna on the bidding of his tutor. But as he stood here, watching the birds fly lazy circles on the updraft, Jishen decided to try out his newly made bow and his newly made theorem that, using an obscure move from Wuxia, the mystical, physics-defying martial arts powers that define a vast and ever-popular genre of Chinese cinema, he might slow time to better strike moving targets. Jishen challenges you to a nature-off: shoot down more birds than him within the allotted time and he will gift you his notebook containing the secret knowledge to keep forever.
Arrow-time, as this pre-industrial revolution form of bullet-time might be described, is a staple of most videogames that place any sort of emphasis on ballistics. But in Where Winds Meet, a lavish open-world game from a Chinese team with, it feels, a great deal to prove, this magic seems entirely in keeping with the tone and mythos of its reality. This is a world defined not only by lily pads and swaying reeds, by fields of ostentatiously colourful blooms and giant ancient statues, but by physical sorcery. Still Water, as the time-slurring move is known, is just one option on an overwhelming menu of ‘Mysteries’ available to your character, clandestine skills that subvert, exaggerate, or upturn the rules of the physical world, often in delightful ways.
Some of these
moves, which must be learned by first convincing different characters in the world to impart their knowledge, have the subtle intimacy of a close-up card trick. Chi Grip, for example, allows your character to summon distant objects to his hand
with a subtle flex of the fingers. You learn the trick while observing a drinking competition in a boozy village. As one competitor, seemingly unaffected by the yards of ale he’s consuming, challenges passers-by to drink him under the table, another spectator conspiratorially points out the box of alcohol-nullifying pills he’s been gobbling before each swig. You Chi Grip the pills into your hand, expose the competitor’s scam, and watch as he’s chased from the village.
As players learn new abilities, so the range of character builds expands.
As many as ten Mysteries can be equipped, and the combination of martial arts used can profoundly alter the feel of combat
IN SICKNESS AND HEALTH
WhereWinds Meet features a fully developed disease system which can affect both the player character and NPCs in the world. Your character might catch a cold if they move between areas with different climates too quickly, or break their bones by falling from too great a height. Animals too can become ill and require diagnosis and treatment. Some diseases are temporary and will pass with time; others can become more serious if not properly treated. Ailments are not purely physical, either: the player can also suffer mental illness, perhaps coming to view themselves as an animal, mimicking its movements and actions. If you contract rabies from a wolf bite, you will need to seek out a doctor and receive the proper medical treatment – from either an NPC in singleplayer or a real person with the right training in multiplayer.