Where the winds meet: Our thoughts after three hours in the Wuxia world
Blog Andrew Joseph 29 Jul , 2025 0
Last weekend, global beta testing started Whore of Winds Leets, an open-world game that is already available in China. This free game game took place around 1,000 years in the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty during the so-called Five Dynasty and Ten Kingdoms period. In it, players play the role of a lonely wandering hero in the era of drastic changes, and the power of this era is more important than social rules. IGN readers may not be very familiar with the period of the Five Dynasty and Ten Kingdoms, but don't worry – even seem to apply to Chinese players.
We know that the game has taken some influence from the legend of Tsushima's Ghost and Zelda due to past interviews with lead designer Chris Lyu, but it's hard to imagine exactly what the gameplay would look like. According to Lyu, this is the “world's first Wuxia-themed open world game.” Once I got the game, I found that Wind was indeed a game of Wuxia, and the strength of this concept made various elements see in today's game.
After completing the character creation and starting the game, you first meet an elegant man with flowing hair lying in the bamboo forest while holding the baby in front of your chest, almost like Zhao Yun in the romance of the Three Kingdoms. Then another handsome and long-haired man came to talk to him, and it seemed that the man with the baby had betrayed his school. He leaps on a white horse and then gallops in the bamboo, while avoiding the pursuer's weapons, sometimes slow motion. All of these shots are reminiscent of famous scenes from various Chinese films in the past, and it is clear from the outset that the game is closely related to Wuxia's tradition.
Even after this opening scene, the feeling of “Wuxia-ness” emanates at every turn, and you have control over the characters you create – whether through its gameplay, its systems and graphics, or dialogue. A few minutes after I began to walk the world freely, I talked to an old man on the roadside who asked me to fight back a bear following honey. It seems that the protagonist is able to learn techniques from the bear's movements, because it is incredible to press the button at the right time to learn Tai Chi from the beast according to the pop-up icon.
All of these are tutorials on the mysterious art that forms part of your Arsenal, but more importantly, the process of observing familiar objects and natural knowledge to learn abilities and becoming stronger gives players a strong understanding of the game’s satellite flavor. There seem to be other abilities coming from nature, such as the roar of a lion and the toxic toad style, so I'm sure the protagonist also learns a lot of other techniques from all the creatures in the game world. Just as you might want to be able to use magic to create firepower in a game with fantasy environments, players in Wuxia World of this game are able to master their own strange powers. It's also interesting that these abilities can also be used outside of combat. For example, when the water is used, nearby fish are caught in Tai Chi, thus effectively fishing.
One of the most notable things about this thorough Wuxia game is that it contains many of the elements we expect today and includes exploration in today’s action games. For example, pressing the correct button before an enemy's attack lands will plunder it, creating a round-trip rhythm during the action clip.
While equivalent to the kind of Pari system that has become a staple in recent action games, the game goes slow motion when it's time to put out enemy attacks and display an icon to tell you what button to press (although this icon can be turned off in options). Although a story-centric pattern similar to Final Fantasy XVI, these icons run out of insight points when displayed and will not appear if you run out, so you can't recklessly block every enemy's attack.
Currently, players can use seven weapon types (and plan to add more weapons). In addition to the standard sword and spear, there are more unusual weapons, such as umbrellas and folding fans. Each weapon offers its own unique gameplay, such as the umbrella trick that temporarily unconscious enemies, or the fan creates an ability to heal the player and his allies.
Players can be equipped with main weapons and subweapons, each of which can implement various martial arts techniques. What technologies can you use to make changes based on the school you are studying, and there are 11 schools in total. The fighting style of the game will vary widely customization depending on the combination of mystery and martial arts skills you use. Between all the different attacks, the balance between offense and defense achieved by Paris and the overall fanatical approach to the elements of the opposition feels like the game has taken a popular modern feature menu and ordered everything.
Whether used as a primary weapon or a sub-weapon, bows and arrows are treated differently, and can attack enemies from a distance, while also solving problems by burning vines to open paths. The way to position shows the impact of another game mentioned above, namely The Legend of Zelda: Breathing in the Wild.
The game's open world exploration and progress core is also created with luxury. During the preview, I was able to visit Kaifeng, one of China's eight ancient capitals in Hainan Province, and was one of the largest cities in the world at that time. Despite the war fanaticism, the city in the game is open and active, with residents chatting like Cyberpunk 2077 after only a short walk in the street. It sounds like over a thousand NPCs have a reputational level that allows you to be friends with them alone.
It is not difficult to imagine how people live on the game's detailed Kaifeng streets, which is obviously reproduced by referring to historical relics that still exist today. Walk along the streets of all this and you will eventually find a large arch bridge. A beautiful palace with towering defensive capabilities is waiting for you on the other side, which makes it clear how prosperous this Chinese capital was at that time. From there, players will be able to dig out the secrets of their birth as a wandering hero.
After about three hours of gameplay, I can see that the place where the wind meets is full of elements that players experience in open world games. But what shocked me the most was that while you could call it a feature of Mishmash, the key concepts of Wuxia and how these elements were introduced fuse all the elements together in a natural way. Perhaps you can say that the most defining wind is this coexistence of the past decade, which makes open world and action games fun together with Chinese creators’ love for the Wuxia genre.