Where Winds Meet has cleared a major milestone on launch, pulling in more than 2 million players worldwide within 24 hours of its global release.
The open-world Wuxia action RPG from Everstone Studio and NetEase Games went live globally on November 14 as a free-to-play title on PC and PlayStation 5. The game had already been available in China since late 2024, but this marks its first wide rollout to international servers.
Player count and concurrent peak
Everstone and NetEase report that over 2 million players logged into Where Winds Meet in the first day after global launch. On Steam alone, the game reached a peak of roughly 190,000 concurrent users, placing it among the platform’s most-played titles at launch.
On PC storefront charts, the game rapidly climbed into the top tier of releases. Where Winds Meet ranked as high as fourth on Steam’s best-seller list and entered the top five in concurrent player rankings during its opening window. It is also listed among the best-selling titles on PlayStation Store in multiple regions, including:
- United States
- France
- South Korea
- Singapore
- Indonesia
- Thailand
- Malaysia
- New Zealand
These figures come on top of a large pre-launch audience: the game amassed around 10 million pre-registrations ahead of its worldwide rollout.
Reception and monetization
The early player response has been broadly positive. On Steam, Where Winds Meet currently holds a “Very Positive” rating, with over 80 percent of reviews recommending the game and tens of thousands of user reviews posted in its first week.
Players frequently highlight three areas:
- Visuals and world design, with a dense open world inspired by late medieval China.
- Combat, which blends martial arts swordplay with supernatural abilities and flexible difficulty options.
- Performance, with smooth frame rates reported across a range of PC hardware and stable performance on PS5.
The game uses a free-to-play business model with an in-game shop and battle pass. Early community discussion points to monetization centered on cosmetics, premium mounts with minor convenience perks, and a battle pass that adds small quality-of-life bonuses. There is no indication that direct combat power or progression gates are being sold, and the Chinese version has run for roughly a year without major pay-to-win additions.
Not everything is landing cleanly. The user interface is a common criticism, with players calling out dense menus, overlapping systems, and multiple currencies that make basic navigation harder than it needs to be. Co-op limitations are another sticking point: the main story plays out in a primarily solo instance, while multiplayer is focused on dungeons, events, and PvP modes.
Gameplay focus and structure
Where Winds Meet is set in 10th‑century China during the period known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. You play a young swordsman moving through political conflict and spiritual intrigue in the martial world known as the Jianghu.
The structure splits into two main layers:
- A single-player world with a narrative campaign, side quests, exploration, and character progression.
- Online activities, including co-op encounters, group dungeons, PvP, and social spaces with MMO-style population density.
Movement is a core part of the appeal. Characters can sprint across rooftops, scale cliffs, and glide over valleys, reflecting classic Wuxia cinema more than traditional Western open-world design. Combat draws from martial arts fantasy, with multiple weapon types and skill trees, and optional assists such as parry aids or lower difficulties for players who prefer story over challenge.
On Steam and PS5, players can effectively treat the game as a single-player RPG with optional online elements: the story can be played without engaging with co-op or PvP, and there are settings to reduce or hide other players’ presence in the world.
Part of a broader wave of Chinese action RPGs
The strong launch positions Everstone Studio as a new global name in the action RPG space and adds momentum to a wider slate of Chinese-developed titles drawing from regional history and mythology.
Black Myth: Wukong’s success in 2024 helped expand the audience for games rooted in Chinese legend. Where Winds Meet arrives into that same climate, offering a different slice of mythology and history focused on the Jianghu and Wuxia storytelling instead of Journey to the West.
Everstone’s lead producer Beralt Lyu says the team plans “high-quality seasonal updates” with new story arcs, modes, and exploration areas in the coming months, alongside ongoing tuning based on player feedback. For now, the first-day numbers show there is substantial global interest in this style of Wuxia RPG, and the longer-term question will be how many of those 2 million players stick around once the launch rush fades.
