If there’s one thing we’re not short of in the year of our lord 2023, it’s open-world RPGs. You can’t move for the little blighters. It takes a lot, then, for a new title to step into that crowded arena and make us sit up and take notice. ButWhere Winds Meetmight have just stolen Gamescom for me.
Take a look atWhere Winds Meetin action below.
My demo began with a quick walk through the game’s combat, where the Souls-like inspirations are most evident. Your character can block, dodge, parry, and combine light and heavy attacks with special moves. It’s fast, demanding, and slick as all hell. Nailing the timing on a parry before following up with a bloody execution is endlessly satisfying. I’ll also say, as someone who had to play with a keyboard and mouse who hasneverplayed an action game with a keyboard and mouse, I picked up the flow of combat very quickly. That’s a testament to the game’s design, rather than a weird flex re my own ability, to be clear.
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After the combat basics I was shown a character creation screen that might just be the most outrageously in-depth I’ve ever seen. You can customise pretty much every part of your character’s features right down to the most minute details, and if I’d had more time to screw around with it I’m sure I could’ve spent all day in there. Alas, it was time to drop into the game’s open-world, which is outrageously gorgeous.
We talk a lot about howGhost Of Tsushimawas one of last generation’s prettiest games, butWhere Winds Meetsomehow manages to make Sucker Punch’sPlayStationgem look like a dirty brown poo stain. Everstone has created a world alive with colour and vivid detail, one of rolling green hills and fields of flowers for miles. At the momentWhere Winds Meetis only confirmed for PC, but I’d love to see it push PlayStation 5 andXbox Series X/Sto their limits.
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One of my main takeaways from my brief time withWhere Winds Meetwas that it has a really fun sense of humour baked into its gameplay and world design. One special move allowed me to leap onto a goat and charge into enemies, and given how many moves and abilities there are I don’t doubt there’ll be plenty more that are just as - if not more - silly. At another point in the demo I ran into an NPC and my character simply leap-frogged over their head and carried on sprinting. It’s little touches like this that further serve to setWhere Winds Meetapart from the rabble.
If I have one concern it’s thatWhere Winds Meetcould try to be too many things to too many people. Everstone has never made a game on this scale before, and they’re already talking about it being more than a huge, gorgeous open-world adventure. There’s talk of fishing, being able to build houses via a crafting system, and generally going off and playing the game in completely different ways (if you’d rather sack off being a hero and become a merchant, you totally can apparently). That’s before we even get to the tons of combat skills and various other RPG elements. Bigger isn’t always better, but if Everstone really can deliver everything it wants to thenWhere Winds Meetcould just set a new high watermark for open world adventure games. You’ll definitely want to keep an eye on this one.
Topics:NetEase,PC
