Where Winds Meet leans on AI in a few targeted systems rather than across the entire game. The core wuxia RPG – main story, key quests, voiced characters, and the huge open world – is traditionally authored. AI appears mainly in three areas:
| Feature | How AI is used | What it affects in play |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot NPCs | Large language model (LLM) style text chat for some side NPCs | Freeform conversations tied to a small “befriend this NPC” mini‑quest |
| Affection / “Old Friend” system | Same chatbot layer evaluates your replies against that NPC’s problem | Unlocks affinity, weekly gifts, occasional combat help, or hostility |
| Character face generation | AI-assisted face builder using a selfie and/or voice sample | Speeds up making a custom avatar that roughly resembles you |
English voiceover is handled by human voice actors. The AI systems sit alongside the authored content rather than replacing it.
AI chatbot NPCs: what they are and what they’re not
Only a slice of the world’s NPCs are AI-driven. These are mostly “ambient” townsfolk, disciples, shopkeepers, or minor figures scattered through the open world. You can recognise them because interacting opens a text chat window instead of the usual fixed dialogue options.
These NPCs:
- Use an LLM-style backend that can parse freeform sentences and reply in character.
- Have a small personal problem or goal baked in (a drinking habit, self-doubt, a scam, grief, etc.).
- Track an affinity value with your character, tied to that problem.
- Can react in multiple ways: warming to you, shutting down, or even attacking.
They are not full simulation agents. They can’t create new items, spawn new locations, or rewrite quest lines that don’t already exist. Their output is constrained to text and to a discrete set of possible in‑game flags (like “become Old Friend”, “turn hostile”, “give weekly gift”).
How chatbot conversations are structured
Each AI NPC is framed as a small, word‑driven puzzle. The game gives you a short description of the character’s situation or vice. Your goal is to steer the conversation to a resolution that matches the intended arc.
Common patterns include:
| NPC situation | What the chat expects from you | Typical outcomes |
|---|---|---|
| A drunk courier whose work is suffering | Recognise the addiction, challenge his rationalisations, nudge him toward cutting back | He acknowledges the problem and softens, raising affinity |
| A disciple doubting the point of training | Encourage him, reframe his efforts, or offer practical help | He regains confidence, your bond improves |
| A shady merchant selling cheap wine and fake manuals | Confront him, threaten to call guards, or play along | He can confess, stay evasive, or get angry |
| Guards or bandits looking for a criminal or bounty | Gaslight them, bluff about being their “master’s envoy”, or antagonise them | They may accept your lie and befriend you, or attack if pushed |
The model understands not just what you say but also simple descriptions of your actions, so players often write in a “tabletop RPG” style: mixing dialogue with short stage directions to get better responses.
What you get for befriending AI NPCs
Solving an AI NPC’s personal dilemma usually flips them from “Stranger” to “Old Friend” in the affection system. That change has modest but tangible gameplay hooks:
- Weekly gifts: many Old Friend NPCs send small items periodically.
- Combat assistance: some who can fight can be called to help with bosses or other encounters.
- House hires (planned): Some accounts describe future housing features where befriended NPCs can be hired to live or work in your home.
None of this replaces the main questline. These chats are optional side content, closer to collectible word puzzles than to core story beats.
How reactive can the AI NPCs be?
Players have pushed the system in several directions, which highlights both its range and its limits.
- Emotional arcs: It’s possible to spin elaborate narratives that the NPC accepts as real. One widely shared example involves convincing an NPC he has impregnated the player’s character, demanding child support, and then telling him the (fictional) child has died. The NPC responds with extended guilt and grief.
- Lore questions: Some NPCs can answer questions about local history, factions, or locations, often in a way that matches the game’s wuxia tone.
- Modern or out‑of‑setting prompts: If you ask about things like cellphones or modern airports, they tend to act confused or guide you back to in‑world topics, though occasional anachronisms still slip through.
- Guardrails and aggression: Push some characters too hard with insults or threats, and they can stop talking or even turn hostile, triggering a fight and, in at least one case, jail time after a public killing.
There is no deep integration with the global game state. You can, for example, convince a guard you are some legendary criminal or invent a cult for an impressionable villager, and the world at large will not reorganise itself around that fiction. The AI controls the conversation and a handful of associated flags; everything else still runs on authored systems.
Typical failure modes and “hallucinations”
Because these bots are powered by an LLM-style model, they inherit its weaknesses:
- Making up details: NPCs can invent backstory, secrets, or quest implications that don’t exist in the actual game logic. You might get hints about a “big secret” or relationships that never pay off.
- Historical errors: The setting is roughly the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of China, but bots have suggested things like cooking with ketchup and potatoes, and then half‑corrected themselves by noting that tomatoes weren’t known in Song‑era China.
- Over‑agreeableness: They are often too eager to go along with your framing, even when it’s absurd (aliens invading, brain‑eating monsters, invented children, and so on).
- Illusory freedom: Conversations feel wide‑open, but only a small subset of inputs actually move the underlying affinity or trigger special behaviours. Everything else is flavour.
For players expecting airtight lore or systemic consequences, that can be frustrating. Many treat these interactions as a toy sandbox: fun to break, not something to rely on for reliable information or unique quest content.
How the AI affects game design and pacing
The chatbot layer changes how you read the world compared with traditional RPGs:
- “Generic” looking NPCs may hide a chat puzzle, so there’s more incentive to experiment with who you talk to.
- Typing your own lines can feel more immersive than clicking prewritten options, especially when the bot mirrors tone and references.
- At the same time, you lose the clear signalling that a dialogue tree usually provides. Without visible branches, it’s harder to know if you’re progressing a mini‑quest or just spinning your wheels.
Some players like the looser, improvisational texture – especially those who already enjoy roleplaying in text. Others bounce off quickly once they realise most conversations still funnel toward a small number of outcomes and that the bots sometimes fabricate details.
AI in Where Winds Meet’s character creator
Alongside the chatbot NPCs, Where Winds Meet offers an AI-backed option in character creation. You can upload a selfie and/or use your voice to “generate a face for the character.” The system then produces a face preset that roughly matches the photo, which you can tweak further with standard sliders.
Players describe it as a time‑saver more than anything else. Manually sculpting a likeness in a complex editor can take a long time; the AI pass gets you 70–80 percent of the way there in a few seconds.
The game states that the images and sound you upload for this feature are not used for AI training. Any concerns about how biometric data is handled come down to whether you trust the publisher’s implementation and the surrounding legal framework.
Privacy, monetisation, and player sentiment
Two separate tensions show up around these AI features.
| Issue | Concerns | What the game does |
|---|---|---|
| Data and biometrics | Face and voice uploads could, in theory, be stored or reused beyond face generation. | The game states they are not used for model training; enforcement sits with local privacy and AI laws. |
| Cost and incentives | Free‑to‑play design sometimes pairs flashy tech with aggressive monetisation. | Where Winds Meet is free, with multiple gacha systems, a battle pass, and expensive cosmetics, but the AI chats themselves are not pay‑gated. |
On top of that, opinion is split on whether these features are welcome in a big-budget RPG at all. Some players treat the chatbots as the most interesting part of the game, a rare example of AI being used for something that’s hard to author by hand at scale: thousands of small, bespoke-feeling conversations with otherwise generic NPCs. Others see them as a novelty at best and a distraction or ethical red flag at worst.
What to expect if you’re deciding whether to play
If you’re weighing up Where Winds Meet primarily on its AI usage, a few practical points help set expectations:
- You can play the main story, tackle dungeons, and explore the world without seriously engaging with the chatbot NPCs; they’re optional side content.
- The AI chats are most rewarding if you enjoy roleplaying in text, experimenting with phrasing, and treating NPCs as improv partners rather than as quest dispensers.
- Do not expect the bots to become a full game master. They can’t alter the main plot, generate new mechanics, or create completely new questlines on the fly.
- Be prepared for occasional nonsense, anachronisms, and dead ends; that’s part of the texture of the system right now.
Where Winds Meet is not an “AI game” in the sense of delegating its core content to models. It is a traditional open‑world wuxia RPG that experiments with AI in a narrow band of NPC interactions and in its face builder, with results that are often entertaining, sometimes messy, and currently impossible to mistake for fully authored storytelling.
