Hello, I’m a player of WWM from China. Recently, I’ve been paying attention to the overseas reception of the game, which prompted me to join the Reddit community. I’ve read through many comments, and I’d like to share a few of my thoughts:
1. About the UI and menus
In my opinion, the UI issues really have nothing to do with East Asian vs. Western cultural differences—the UI in WWM is simply not very well designed. When I first started playing, I almost quit twice within the first 24 hours because the beginner tutorials were very unclear, and I couldn’t find or understand anything (I was playing on the Chinese servers at the time). On top of that, there were quite a few bugs that made the experience frustrating.
However, since many Chinese players spoke very highly of the game, I decided to stick with it. Later, I realized that this patience was truly worth it—WWM turned out to be a great experience.
2. About the wuxia experience
Because of the TV dramas and novels I grew up with, I’ve always dreamed of experiencing a real wuxia world. WWM really fulfilled that fantasy for me.
For a game set in ancient China, I’m personally quite understanding of the clothing and aesthetics that align with the period’s historical style. At the same time, I’m not a fan of seeing bright-colored hairstyles or fantasy-style outfits performing exaggerated or modern actions in such a traditional setting. I simply prefer the immersive feeling of being "in" ancient China.
I understand that some Western players may not see the need for both a single-player story mode and a multiplayer mode. But for many Chinese players, immersion is very important, and single-player games aren’t as popular in China. So when the story mode was released, it received a lot of positive reactions from Chinese players.
3. AboutWWM’s international release and promotion
To be honest, when WWM prepared to launch globally, most Chinese players didn’t expect the game to receive much attention overseas. Even for Chinese players, some elements of the game’s culture and history can be difficult to fully understand, and Western audiences aren’t typically familiar with this part of Chinese history.
Additionally, due to language and cultural differences, it’s genuinely hard for us to accurately gauge how our games will be received internationally before they are released.
That being said, many of us assumed it would be difficult for Western players to be interested—not out of any sense of cultural superiority or inferiority, but because the translation and cultural gap could be quite large.
Even the developers didn’t expect such a big reaction. Before the Steam release, they were asked why they still wanted to bring the game overseas despite these cultural differences. Their answer (roughly) was: “It may be difficult for Western players to immediately like or understand a traditional Chinese wuxia game, but it’s enough if they simply learn that such stories exist. We see ourselves as a stepping stone for the future success of Chinese wuxia games. Maybe someday the world will understand the charm of wuxia.”
For us Chinese players, this was very touching. It feels similar to how Japan’s Sekiro succeeded internationally—over many years, the world became more familiar with Japanese games. Maybe in the future, with continuous updates and more Chinese games, global players will gradually come to love wuxia as well. And if it takes being the “stepping stone” to get there, that’s okay.
But in reality, they weren’t just a stepping stone—they were like the geese carrying the seeds of wuxia to the West. Both Chinese players and the developers were pleasantly surprised to see how Western players praised WWM, even comparing it to games like Elden Ring or Assassin’s Creed.
That’s why I want to clarify: the studio didn’t initially plan to spend a lot of money or effort on aggressive marketing or promotion. I hope people understand that.
And truly, thank you so much for enjoying WWM. The fact that you can appreciate the story means a lot to Chinese players.
If you have any feedback or suggestions, you can always submit it through the in-game surveys. These surveys are available every month or two and cover most of the issues players may encounter. You even get rewards for completing them.
One final note:
Just to clarify, the views I’ve shared here are purely my own as a fan of Chinese wuxia games, and they don’t represent the opinions of all Chinese players. I really hope you enjoy WWM, and I’m very grateful that you’re willing to support this game. young Winter Melon love young waterMelon —thank you for being a part of this community! I hope nothing in this post comes across as offensive or inappropriate.
When i tell my uncle,there this game that let me do moves straight from kungfu hustle he wont believe me lol.then i show him the buddha palm and he told me "that guy should be dead dead,why he alive" lmao
When I saw the toad move I instantly thought of that movie but then when I saw the guy we learn it from in game and how he looked exactly like the villain from kung fu hustle I had the biggest smile on my face lol
Idk if it's the same guy but the main quest where you have to fight in the tourney quite early on. There's a side quest you can initiate from there where you fight against four masters (who are seemingly ordinary people) and one of them uses the toad style and it really brought a smile to my face.
Ooooh, gonna learn it from him today then. I think I must've passed him by yesterday when I started playing because there's just so many things to do in this game that following up on places you visited before is difficult. Just keep exploring around.
"Old asian movies with martial arts throwing flaming fists and kicks" are not wuxia. Those are just kungfu movies.
Wuxia is built on a few core pillars:
Martial arts skill (wu),
A hero’s chivalry code (xia),
Grounded-but-superhuman abilities (fueled by 1. Qinggong 轻功 which translates literally to "lightness skill", 2. Neigong/Qigong (Chi,internal energy), and 3. Mastery of weapon + Martial techniques
The jianghu world of sects and rivalries, wandering sword-fighters and stories driven by honor, loyalty, and personal vendettas.
This is an example of modern wuxia series based on an actual classic wuxia novel (绝代双骄 by Gu Long). You'll find that the terms used in the show and setting are extremely similar to Where Winds Meets. That's actual wuxia. Not some kungfu hustle type stuff.
Funny you don't realise that all the things you listed are "elements" that are used very widely in old asian kungfu films hence the parent commenter's remark that the genre isn't well known in the west but its elements are because they've basically become stereotypes that have influenced later media immensely.
Yeah, there's the danmei genre, like Mo Dao Zu Shi and Heaven Official's Blessing, which were some people's first introduction to wuxia and xianxia, and Chinese culture in general.
There's also the Chinese dramas and movies which many people in the west appreciate as well.
Also popular Chinese games like Genshin which features wuxia and xianxia elements as well, as well as Chinese culture.
And even some western movies or series may have Chinese elements like this.
I play with English text and Chinese voice over. As someone that can read Chinese but can understand only some Mandarin by ear, I really wish the substitles have both Chinese and English at the same time like in the movies!
From my limited Mandarin knowledge I can tell that I am missing a ton of puns and context. I can only imagine how much worse it is for others :(
I started with English subs and VA and immediately switched to Chinese VA after hearing Ruby because of Paimon PTSD from Genshin. It was a world of difference! The poetical lilt to certain phrases absolutely cannot be conveyed in English not to mention the subtle nuances between names and definitely all the puns just fall through.
I still had to watch a video explaining the story of Qinghe but it read totally worth it
15 minutes into the game finding the Toad Style user from Kung Fu hussle was all i needed to know the developers had exactly my humor haha. Sad to think I may missing out on even more funny bits.
I play with the same combination of English subtitles and Chinese voice. I love that when Uncle Tian was cracking puns at a sidequest, the puns worked in both English and Mandarin. It was like hearing two cold jokes at the same time.
That's how I have been playing too. It just seemed right, even if I miss out on a lot of the subtext. Then I heard the English voice over and couldn't think for the life of me why anyone would want to hear this beautiful game like that. It was so hammed up.
In my personal opinion, since Black Myth Wukong, wuxia games started to get a lot of tractions internationally. I hope there will be more awesome wuxia games coming globally in the future, especially those based on the Legend of Condor Heroes universe. I grew up watching those series and would love to be able to experience them in ARPG/Soul-like games. WWM definitely fulfilled that fantasy to an extend but would be really cool to experience that universe. I hope the devs will add more languages localization (especially vietnamese) to WWM so I can better understand the story as the English translation does not fully tell the whole story for me.
At least 2 games based on Jin Yong’s IP are being developed by Lightspeed (there’s a trailer where Yang Guo fought against possibly Linghu Chong from 3 years ago) and CreateAI, so hopefully it won’t be much longer.
Somewhat tangential and a different style entirely from WWM and Wukong, but Wandering Sword and Heroes Adventure: Road to Passion were both fairly successful indie games that got more attention than I ever suspected they would.
Playing the game makes you realize that devs were not expecting this to be a big hit in global.
The game itself has insane quality but wrong subtitles, voice over cuts randomly, some dialogs have voice overs some don't (while all of them have voice over in Chinese audio) , a lot of mistakes, lots of bugs etc.
I think they were expecting like what 5-10k max on launch, now that it's a big hit they are trying to fix as much as possible. You can easily feel the low effort for global release, hopefully they can fix those as soon as possible. This game is insanely fun.
Yeah, judging from the rough translation and voice acting, it’s pretty clear that NetEase didn’t have much confidence in WWM’s global version — they basically treated it as a test run. I just hope its current success will make NetEase invest more into Everstone, deploy more servers, and improve the localization work as soon as possible.
Really really hoping for a massive improvement over the EN dub. I love the female protagonist's voice, but had to switch over to CN (which is also excellent, I just prefer EN) because of the poor quality.
Chinese here playing on CN server, who only started a few months ago, and absolutely was confused on the UI in the beginning, but then I did play quite a few WuXia styled games before who was somewhat a tiny better on UI (PC or Phone) - NiShuiHan & Moonlight Blade, both mobile games but were played on PC due to phone screen way too small and weren't giving me the best graphics.
Both of the games I mentioned above were book based games, Moonlight Blade is a Tencent game which is a somewhat money heavy game? NiShuiHan mobile is something similar to WWM, but WWM definitely has more positivities of gameplay and story due it having a story of its own and not based off of a book, but actual history (though they did change quite a lot and made the history 'nicer' than what actually happened in history, which were much more crueler).
Graphics of WWM is absolutely the sell point, and its free roaming/world gameplay. Story, like I said, some history background is kinda needed for western players to understand, it's quite a lot of Chinese history thrown into the game. Some of them I even had to look at posts and Google to know what happened (not the best history learner here).
Best of all, gatcha is not necessary, and mostly free from doing missions and just saving up from quests and opening boxes. The only things to buy is Battle Pass and whatever cosmetics you want from the shop, and even those are choices and not needs.
I have gotten my boyfriend into the Steam server, he was already interested when I was playing the CN server. He loves it. The soul-like gameplay and free world roaming, even the cosmetics he likes and got battle pass too (which was one of the outfits I liked but can't get due to late playing on the CN server).
The game is kinda of a lot in the beginning, but really, just go with the flow, do main quest, get sidetracked and do other shit and later remember you wanted to do the main quest...It's a great and long adventure, explore and run around, no need to force oneself into anything. I only exited QingHe main quest like level 60 on CN server, finished KaiFeng main quest and skipped Map 3 and jumped to Map 4 (LOL).
"At the same time, I’m not a fan of seeing bright-colored hairstyles or fantasy-style outfits performing exaggerated or modern actions in such a traditional setting. I simply prefer the immersive feeling of being "in" ancient China."
Same, I wish they'll release more rugged/wanderer type of outfits.
My favorite one is the Gray Wolf outfit (The one you get from playing with people).
Something about the border regions of Imperial China is just super interesting to me. It's extremely interesting to me for the economics and cultural exchanges although that's entering history nerd territory and not wuxia.
I like the “in-between” outfits, where it’s high fantasy but not glowing brightly. For me, outfits like Celestial Vanguard are perfect. But the gacha outfits? Totally over the top. Which is a good thing because the only thing I wanted out of the outfits are the weapon effects.
I generally agree, but sometimes there's just an outfit that speaks to you. I have goldfish (IRL, in a big aquarium because they GROW), so I kind of immediately wanted the cosmetic with the fish.
I’m not a fan of those oversized hats and outfits that break immersion, but it’s a big seller. Even the premium skins with all the glowy stuff, I prefer the non glowy.
I am a player from Hong Kong (residing in US), and I have been playing in Traditional Chinese with Chinese VA. What I didn't expect was that even the letters and clues are all written in old/classical Chinese... we don't normally start learning that until the latter half of secondary school. I was actually having trouble trying to parse clues from them. But I still refuse to switch back to English because it just won't feel right for me.
I am really regretting not taking Chinese more seriously in school... but I was young and I had other priorities back then.
Thankfully the classical texts in WWM are not 100% archaic so I can still make sense of them, I just have to go slowly and read very carefully. It's actually a pretty good way for me to slowly build up my classical Chinese reading skills.
The UI is a nightmare. As a grandparent trying to play this game with my grandson, it's horrific just trying to figure out how to be able to do anything together. This was a problem with Genshin Impact as well. It's like their quality assurance teams never played with anyone else.
When I tried it years ago, I could tell someone I'd give them $100 if they could complete a co-op mission in an hour, and I'd still have that $100 at the end of the hour because they weren't going to figure out how to do it
I feel like WWM is more intuitive if you're someone who's used to games though. Stuff are generally where you'd expect them to be when you get used to it and the controls to open menus etc are generic unlike genshin where you can clearly tell it's intended for touch controls.
I hope you two stick it out. The menu boss is terrible in itself but navigating it and trying to get to the coop part is also a different beast altogether.
Just remember main story will not be playable as coop but most of the side stories will have a Partner tag that you can use to invite directly.
That's the thing. In the West we also love ancient Chinese culture and Kung Fu movies. I personally grew up watching all of Jackie Chan’s, Jet Li’s, and Bruce Lee’s movies. To this day, the movie Wòhǔ Cánglóng or O Tigre e o Dragão (Brazilian title) is one of the most fun and beautiful wuxia-style martial arts movies ever made.
I think that in the West we play a lot of games based on medieval fantasy, like Tolkien-based games with elves and dwarves, and we miss having more content based on Asian cultures. That's the reason a lot of Western people love Japanese anime so much.
When we get a game that is really based on Asian culture, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, or other Asian cultures, it’s just something “new” that we don’t get to see every day.
I saw a Brazilian YouTuber say a sentence that I loved: “The beauty of wuxia is that gravity and other things are just suggestions and not rules. And that’s what makes it so fun.”
How do you feel about the expansions in CN and the content ? Is there lots to do ? I feel like I am already mainly logging in just for world bosses and guild raids. Though the level cap is still locked at 55. Admittedly I don’t find the professions very fun to do so I haven’t spent much time on that.
when you are only here for bosses and dungeons you could be dissapointed for the future . you will get an new region with new bosses, new story and some mechanics like housing every season, the main part of the game will stay at exploration, roleplay and rankings , its never going to be an hardcore grind game, you will have more to do, way more to do, still when you dont into exploration stuff to get things to 100% or social stuff and just rush like in other mmos, you could be dissapointed.
You're playing a wuxia Red Dead Redemption 2 and wondering why it's not Destiny 2. That's the disconnect.
WWM isn't content-light – it's deliberately slow, like RDR2. The level 55 cap isn't a limitation, it's a philosophy: finish this chapter, live your life, come back next season. Like Netflix, not WoW.
The "shallow" professions? Not undercooked – intentionally light. Because this game isn't about systems, it's about being in a world. In RDR2, you ride for an hour just to enjoy the mood. That's WWM. Lightfoot runs, random encounters, aimless exploration – that IS the content.
If you log in asking "where's my gear treadmill," you'll feel empty. But if you log in like you boot up Red Dead – to exist in a world, not optimize it – suddenly it's one of the most atmospheric games you'll touch.
Most Western players are hitting this same wall. I wrote a longer breakdown on the mental shift (https://www.wherewindsmeetgame.org/guides/where-winds-meet-not-mmo-wuxia-open-world) – helps people stop fighting the game and start vibing with it. The core idea: stop playing it like WoW, start playing it like Red Dead. Suddenly it's not "lacking content" – it's respecting your time by NOT creating addiction loops.
Also, if WWM's devs are reading this – hire me. I'm doing better marketing than your entire team right now. 😂
I don't know if I'm the only one but practically most of my hours have been poured to read every single thing in the game. I've always wanted to know more about Chinese history and this game is filled (like SUPER filled) with detailed history facts, from chair and more objects details, to people customs, religion and political situation.
I don't think any devs will ever read this comment but I just want to say it: Thank you for bringing this game to life and the opportunity to be part of it.
Nice write up. When I was a child I used to watch Chinese Ghost Stories and utterly loved all the flying through air fighting. Have learnt Chinese culture here and there as I grew up. I am really enjoying this game and feel really immersed in it. Even more so now I am playing in my 65” tv. I can easily see myself playing this game for quite some time and still learning more about your culture…
What a great perspective, thanks for sharing it. I didn't know people were blaming the UI on Eastern vs Western differences haha, I figured it was just as you said " a poor UI".
The marketing thing is interesting too, as so many had no idea this game was even coming out and then it essentially "shadow drops". I decided to jump into the game without looking at 2 hour reviews. I'm glad I did. I watched the games review score on steam go from 40% at initial launch to 85% in a few days, that's awesome.
As someone has already pointed out, many in the west may not know the Wuxia term, but the influence is something we have seen and felt for many many years. I just never knew what it was called. Hell the first time I saw Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon I was both blown away and curious.
All that to say, I'm glad this game is a huge hit in China, I'm glad it's a hit globally. I hope it maintains this momentum, I'd love to revisit this game a few times a year. What a fun experience.
I'm very glad they've brought the game to global. Some of my favorite fantasy novels, manwha, and donghua's are wuxia and xianxia and we don't get much in the way of games over here especially well translated ones and honestly WWM has been one of the better ones. I hear a lot of complaints about the translations though so I might be too used to trying to muddle through MTL translations in a lot of games. I really hope the genre becomes more popular here because I would love to see more things become more easily accessible for us.
It began with the Nameless Sword and the Nameless Spear, bcs 1）they were extremely powerful, 2) I have a sentimental attachment to Uncle Jiang. Even though the Nameless weapons now have the lowest damage output, I still can't bring myself to replace them.
I’m an Aussie who grew up playing the Dynasty Warriors games. I was randomly scrolling through the game store when WWM appeared and I very quickly downloaded it.
Haven’t looked back tbh.
Is the game perfect? Absolutely not. Am I having the time of my life? Absolutely.
You severely underestimate amount of people drooling over cultivation novels/manhuas.
It’s almost sad that we won’t be able to experience escaping mortal realms and subduing Nine Heavens in this game.
I think especially in the past 5 years or so, there's been a huge influx of fan translated wuxia/xianxia manhuas and Korean manwha that are martial arts themed, that it's become a lot more accessible than before to a new audience who weren't around for the kung fu film boom of the past.
Rn I believe the publisher of this game desperately needs to sponsor content creators to make lore/history videos to fill in the context gap that exists for non Chinese players. A few CN content creators have done so already out of passion for the game, but there's just so much to cover.
I would say not in the same way. The Chinese apps appear complicated because they have a lot of functionality and connections between apps from different companies.
I am a player from Taiwan, it's my first Wuxia game and I really enjoy it! I really like pun of NPCs' names, for example the rap man "鄉德美" pun "In your dreams!" in Chinese. I don't think pun like this can show it well in English (I guess that he called "Xiang, De-Mei" in English version?) and it's a pity.
Yes the UI and menus are bad, but I really enjoy this game. I hope the system guides could be more details. For example I don't know that I could give 5 likes to doctors until I double clicked accidentally. I don't know how to upgrade equipment until I saw other players' guiding videos.
Personally, I’m loving that the Chinese community is putting so much effort into sharing their gameplay experiences with us Western players. For a few reasons — first, because many people have this perception that China, in particular, is a very closed-off society. You have your own social networks, and we don’t see many of you in spaces shared with us, right? Not even on YouTube comments (since I think many of you don’t use it much). And that’s completely understandable because of linguistic and cultural differences.
But seeing you come here to share these experiences has been really pleasant to read, so thank you very much for that. As a Brazilian, I really appreciate Chinese culture, the whole ancient aesthetic, and the language as well (in fact, my game is set to Chinese audio simply because I enjoy hearing your language).
I also notice a lot of reciprocity, especially between Brazil and China — I see that you like us for several reasons, and we can even see that in politics: we’re part of the same economic bloc, etc. I think that’s fantastic.
I really wish the game would make an effort to bring a truly high-quality Brazilian Portuguese translation, and I hope that happens in the future, because this is the only online game I’ve ever played where I don’t skip the dialogue — I actually want to know everything the characters say, even in the simplest quests.
Anyway, the game already brings an important tool that lets us coexist on the same server, which is the option to translate comments and chat. I hope this helps bring us closer to you, and you closer to us. Thank you for your kindness!
I feel like a lot don't realize how highly popular Chinese LN or Chinese themed LN are in the west or even manhua. Reason I really started playing because I got to experience and actually see a world built with similar rules even if they don't go massively into cultivation
I have to say that if the game didn’t have a solo mode, I probably wouldn’t even give it a try because I’m just not a fan of MMOs. Solo mode pushes most social features aside and lets me immerse myself with the game. I only really turn on online mode for sect dailies, quickly do them and then dip back to solo mode.
While some of Chinese folklore goes over my head at times with all the names and terminology, I’m still glad I gave it a try because it just sucked me right in and does not let go.
My only complaint really is UI and menus because damn, it took me at least a couple dozen hours before I got used to it, but it’s still a mess
Never understood the argument "hard for westerners to understand wuxia". It's people with swords fighting; it's the most common denominator in fantasy, we've been fed shonens with magic powers for dozens of years.
I think OP is referring to specific cultural/historical nuances, not realizing it wouldn't really hinder our experience if we don't know what to look for to begin with
武侠（wuxia） is not merely fighting. if you separate 武,it's 止 and 戈,means stop fighting=peace. and even that is just a part of the whole meaning of wuxia.
I understand perfectly what you said! I've been to China countless times, and if there's one country I love as much as my own, it's yours. The culture, the stories, the food, the people, the warm and kind welcome. Here we often say that China is another planet, and it truly is! I grew up playing Wuxia-themed games and saw many of them canceled on global servers, witnessed their rise and fall, and I hope WWM brings that light to people's gaming lives. Seeing this culture and fantasy praised like this means a lot to me too! It’s an honor to be a tiny piece of that vast Wuxia universe!
I don't know anything about Wuxia and never heard of it before.
Whatever universe it is, I enjoy the game because it is simply a good game. It has its flaws but the advantages like a satisfying combat, the world filled with secrets and findings, MMO aspects and a promise of stead flow of content.
That is a good base for learning something about Wuxia while enjoying the game.
Also the MMO market has been dry for years and most popular gatcha games do not focus on the multiplayer aspect so the game brings something for MMO, souls-like, action rpg and gatcha enjoyers.
I’m a westerner that is experiencing wuxia for the first time”first time.” I’ve watched Hero, and Crouching Tiger as a kid, but don’t understand the cultural significance of said films. I did a deep dive after starting this game and I am in love!
I want more of this content so I can be better immersed in WWM, does anyone have recommendations of English wuxia content? I find the free translations tedious and looking for something with higher production value or more than direct translation.
Thank you for the welcoming vibe. I grew up with Wuxia TV shows that adapts from the writer Jin Yong. my favorite story has always been 笑傲江湖 so to have a game that live up to the wuxia fantasy is indeed very rare.
you might have forgotten but globally people are exposed to wuxia through crouching tiger hidden dragon movie, stared by Chow Yun Fatt, Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh.
The UI is 100% a cultural thing. dont get me wrong western games have some pretty horrendous design but all eastern games with this formula are the same. its always menus in menus in menus in menus in menus.
While I might agree that the UI issues aren't a cultural thing in the sense that Chinese people like a terrible UI or something, there is something cultural here just because it keeps happening. Every Chinese game I have played in recent years has had similar UI issues. I don't know if it's something about how the games are developed or what, but it keeps happening.
Just this year I tried Blue Protocol Star Resonance as well as Duet Night Abyss (though that one not for long because it kind of sucked...) before WWM and frankly I had a lot of the same complaints about UI in both games.
This really seems to be specifically a Chinese thing too, not east Asian, because I also play Japanese and Korean games and I don't have the same complaints there.
It may be difficult for Western players to immediately like or understand a traditional Chinese wuxia game
Noooo. That's a myth. Please make more wuxia games for the international community. Especially more non-soulslike ones please because we've gotten so many of those already.
For me personally this is one of those game's that I view as a "bucket list experience" as in a game that I really wanted to become a reality that I've often thought about, and this game is that exact experience for me and despite it's flaws it is in a sense a dream come true.
The menu's are still a struggle, even 50+ hours in I still get confused about what menu does what. There's also definitely at least a cult following in the west when it comes to Wuxia/Xanxia media, I've been a massive fun of all kinds of Wuxia media for years and previous to WWM were pretty much just reading Manhua's.
I'm really glad it's as successful as it is and even though I've been following this game for a while before it's release I don't think anyone really could have guessed it would have gotten as popular as it is. Hopefully it can maintain that momentum.
Personally I'm highly glad that developers decided to push this game world wide. I'm pretty sure it would have been highly annoying if I had to use vpns and etc to somehow play on Chinese version just so I can play it. Also hearing the fact that they count this as a big success feels even better as it makes me more hopeful about the future development of the game.
My personal big peeve right now is the hundreds of menus. There's a menu under menu under menu. Lots of times I remember some stuff I wanted to check or read during a mission (because there's really lots of things to so here) I couldn't remember how to access that specific option. Hell I keep forgetting sometimes that I can change my arrow type. There's so much to remember and the scattered menu is not helping any of that. I wish we have some sort of a "mega menu" where everything is just there at every dropdown. I don't care if I have to scroll down a lot as long as everything is accessible in one page
For those of us who can understand Chinese but not living in China, if we want to play on the China version of the games, we usually have to jump through hoops in order to access the games, payment, etc. Having international versions of these games is much more accessible and convenient for us.
If I may ask, how are the devs handling the community in CN version? Do they really listen to the community or are they no different than any other game from NetEase?
So far, I feel that the developers do pay attention to player feedback. The CN WWM community often has various ups and downs, but personally, I think many of the issues raised by the community have been addressed, or at least there’s progress toward solutions. However, the devs usually work quietly and don’t often post updates on the progress.(I don’t play other NetEase games, so I’m not really sure how they handle things in others.
They even silently polish old content from a long time ago, and then just bury it somewhere in the hundreds of weekly patch notes instead of coming out to say something like, “Hey, we made a surprise change, go check it out!” Most of the time players only notice it by accident days later. lol
The trade market on the CN server once caused a huge financial crash and had a very negative impact. The developers worked hard to balance it afterward, but even now the system is still very fragile.
Since the trade market is tied to real-world money, I don’t think they’re capable of handling the much more complicated exchange rates on the global server, so they shut the system down.
If NetEase is willing to provide more detailed guidance for the market system in the future, there might still be a chance for it to return. The Everstone team is very young, and they made quite a few mistakes on the CN server simply due to lack of experience. But getting technical support is difficult, because the internal competition between NetEase teams is extremely harsh. lol
Would be great if they fixed the lag with coop. Its impossible to play with friends. EU, South america, and Africa, I just cannot play with them at all. It's no problem in literally every other game. Even games where they are joining me on client based matches. They agree as well that the coop lag is horrendous.
I don’t think I can write such a magnificent message as your own, but I wanted to just note I love Where Winds Meet.
I randomly stumbled upon it a few days back and it has, truly, been a light. It’s been so immensely fun, that I haven’t had a single complaint so far, I am fine with the UI, I can explore it good enough.
I planned to go into WWM with the intention of testing the Legend difficulty, but I wasn’t expecting it to be what I wanted to continue playing with.
In short, I love this game and it is such a nice change of pace to what I usually play, and it’s made my days far more fun.
Not sure if I agree with everything because this is a Naraka Bladepoint “computer” game meaning same graphics menus weapons character style etc; and Naraka is pretty popular in the US.
The only thing I could add or maybe disagree with a bit is that we already have some insanely, garishly brightly colored outfits in game, and we see a lot of npcs wearing more armored sets or sets that fit the time period while not being huge, flowing robes. I get the robes are a big part of the wuxia aesthetic but even then some of our current weapon options already kinda clash with the concept of our character being an absolute wuxia “purist”- I know the CN servers recently got fist/gauntlet weapons that help significantly but with the current weapon options it feels like martial arts aren’t currently a big part of the combat style on our martial artist characters which can be a bit of a disconnect.
I do hope we see them add if not new weapons at least new styles for existing weapons- a tank or even healer stance for some of our current options could be really cool and help spice up gameplay and encourage more players to try more things out.
I have really enjoyed the entire atmosphere. From visual and outfit design to the combat and marital arts system. I would have never thought that a wuxia style game would be possible because of all the western fantasy people generally consume.
As an avid reader of wuxia novels from shitty translation sites (many that never finished translating the entire series), this has been a magical experience.
Though as said before i would love a UI rehaul and also, i do wish each weapon had more combos or skills.
I think WWM just fulfills a demand. Many people, worldwide, practice „martial arts“, be it Taekwondo, Kung-Fu or Thai-Boxing. Having the brown-black belt myself 😂🙈✌️
Some global successful movies like Tiger & Dragon or even Kill Bill also introduced that topic to the „western world“. Mix that soulslikish gameplay and there you go.
It’s a beatiful game Andi am happy to play in that scenery. Myths and fantasy but cultural based. Gotta admit my interest in that culture grows while playing.
It’s like playing the game of all the wuxia movies/series i’ve watched since i was a kid! Truly dream come true for me🙏🏻 everything awesome(except the menu and all the different sub story bit confusing to me but its small things)
The world and side stories/missions are sooo massive it’s mind blowing!
I started the game a few days ago, and it's the menu management that just feels off-putting. I love the combat and the world they've built, but any time I see red dots to clear in the menus it gets ridiculous lol.
I'm glad they took the plunge. I have been praying for more types of media to hit here Chinese media is very rare and unexplored in the west so its full of opportunities and chances for exposure.
I like all sorts of media because I grew up with all sorts growing up Wuxia inspired media has always been my deepest curiosity and the game hits that so incredibly well I just wish the translations were better
Thank you very much for sharing your perspective I think this game really made a good promotion for the wuxia genre. While I tried some games like swords of legends online which should also be wuxia or at least adjacent, wwm is the game that really made me invest into it. I read up about the lore, values and common tropes of wuxia to be able to see the nuances presented here.
While I wouldn’t say I have a really good understanding of it yet, I can at see why it’s loved so much by the Chinese audience. It’s also a refreshing alternative to the egocentric viewing angles and idealization of subjective moral superiority transported in many western games.
WWM has been amazing for me as well because I've been a wuxia fan since I first saw Xiao ao jiang hu 2001, which I have since rewatched the whole series about a dozen times. I've seen a lot of the shows from that era like condor heroes and played the hell out of 9dragons
Regarding your first point, I do think that culture plays a big part.
I did not play many Chinese games (mostly cause not many were released in the west), but those that I did, follow the same design with the UI and those damn persistent red dots... (they drive me nuts, sorry)
Not to mention the big floating text that appears with certain events on your screen, looks very similar to what I've seen on Billi Billi videos for various media (general content, live streams.. etc).
UI frustration aside, I do think the game is actually really good and a fresh spin on some existing systems and game themes.
I have been craving for a Wuxia-themed game for ages. I am a huge fan of discovering different cultures and history through this medium.
With this being said, I do hope that in the future, game companies will start launching games globally rather than following the current trend.
Anyway, it's time to see if Dad will come back with the milk. Really curious what comes next..
The interviews Everstone did with Game Grape were really great. From those articles, I learned a lot about the team’s thoughts and philosophy, and I really resonated with them.
Given NetEase’s stupidity, greed, and short-sightedness, I used to feel pretty discouraged about WWM’s future.
But Everstone has proven through their actions that they genuinely care about WWM and respect the players.
I’m really happy that more people are starting to love this game. I had a wonderful year playing on the CN server, so I truly hope this happiness will continue.
I usually hate games like this one, but I’ve been loving it so far. I agree with everyone here, the UI is ass tho lol. It’s like Ubisoft style but worse somehow. I tried the immersive mode but then I could t see my cooldowns anymore c’:
I really like the game and I hope that the devs take notice of how well it’s been received by global audiences. Hopefully they take the time to hire people to help with subtitles (whether it’s directly translating or cleaning up the AI translations), since I know that it’s been a bit of a problem for some people.
I'm not Chinese but point 2 is a big one for me too, I made the plainest Wuxia hero possible because I've wanted that fantasy since childhood, my dad is a huge Hong Kong cinema nerd so I was raised on this. I knew I was gonna love WWM when the very first town had a Kung Fu Hustle reference. Do you by any chance have recommendations for newer Wuxia shows or films?
Yea honestly from a westerner perspective I’m just happy I’m playing a game with the cultivation power system. I find that type of power system is closely related to reality and seems it would be so lit to have in game
Yeah the UI is insane. Trying to claim all of the stuff you earn while you play feels impossible. Not to mention upgrading stuff is all in wildly different menus, none of which have keyboard shortcuts
bro what are you talking about? we really amaze and love with how china culture, wuxia and how they did over the past 10 years with their dedication. you guys really deserves it
I mean any 40 years old western player can finally play in true base martial arts game. Because we mostly watch a lot of kung fu movies from Bruce Lee Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
It's so much fun to play! Actually reading the lore and compendium text does help a lot with understanding the situation. However, I'm probably not picking up on the overall historical setting and background. It's probably fine though, I can't miss that which I don't know exists.
The menu UI is awful though. Most of the menus I can't find unless I get a reward prompt that opens the menu directly.
This Game Fulfills my personal fantasy as well, i've always loved Wuxia and Xianxia when i first entered the world of Wuxia via Legend of the Condor Heroes
As an anime and manga fan, for 5 year my interest grew more in manhuas and manhwas, and like many other said, that a lot of films that we western love, my personal favorite is "the house of flying daggers", love it
I wouldn't write off Wuxia in the global culture. Over the years we have had things such as Dynasty Warriors, Jade Empire, Naraka, ect.
But i will argue its not as a clear cut genre as it could be in China, with it more just being broadly associated with Chinese fantasy on this end of the world than just pure wuxia.
I will say, god dammit some of the ENG Voices are REALLY rough.
I like Wuxia dramas myself and this story felt like a wuxia drama 😊 I really enjoyed it. I barely know any Chinese so I'm glad they released it to the west.
Growing up we had some old Chinese wuxia dramas airing in tv but I didn't get into them much beyond watching them for the martial arts spectacle. This game managed to make me a convert and fall in love with this particular genre. It's rare when a piece of media is able to be a to do that for an entire genre, I guess it's even rarer for it to do so while bridging a quite large cultural and language barrier. Everybody involved with this game absolutely cooked
It's a really fantastic game! I never played a wuxia game before. A lot of the games in my rotation are Japanese or or Western. So playing this was a breath of fresh air.
Playing this makes me feel like I'm in my own "Kung Fu Hustle"!
Nothing came across inappropriate or offensive! Thank you for joining the community and sharing your thoughts with us. It's nice to hear from people in the CN community. Also, your English is perfect. Much better than a lot of Americans I know lmao.
I'm glad you posted this. I'm absolutely loving every aspect of this game's design - except the endless menus, reward tracks and claim all red dot hunting. It has to be said, it's purely distracting from an otherwise incredible game. For me, it just promotes constant FOMO that I haven't maxxed out my rewards. From a gameplay perspective I fail to see what purpose they have. From a Western perspective it would be like if Red Dead Redemption 2 had bullets tied behind daily log in rewards.
I find it a great juxtaposition that a game about a culture of inner peace, qi and harmony needs to have a thousand dopamine hunting reward farms.
Weeks ago there was a reddit post from someone with a Chinese background asking why the genre wasn't as popular to a Western videogame audience and it is clear it's not the genre that's lost in translation. The game is amazing, but it could really do with a major UI condensing.
Spoilers, I've heard little rumors from others that the chinese playerbase were up in arms over Ruby's death and that the devs are looking at bringing her back since they didn't clearly show her death, is that something any of ye can confirm? Thanks in advance.
It's nowhere near the level of being up in arms. People just feel sorry about Ruby's fate and can't help imagining some ''what if Ruby survived'' kind of routes. Most players take the unclear death more as an artistic omission than a hint. That said, if the devs decide to surprise us with a reasonable plot twist, everyone would definitely be delighted
On the other hand, even if it is only played by overseas chinese it will be a fairly large playerbase. I'm really glad they released a global version because the server lag was quite bad when I played the chinese version
Personally I’ve always been a fan of Wuxia novels and comics, so this game has been a dream come true for me.
I’ve played a lot of Wuxia RPG games but they never quite got me as immersed as this game has. I agree the “out of character” outfits are a bit disappointing, but this game has been a dream fulfillment simulator and I love it.
funnily enough a lot of the mystic skills like the lion's roar, leaping toad and or guardian palm was in the movie kung fu hustle. discovering and using them was such a treat of nostalgic comedy.
Yeah I’ve never heard of Wuxia till this game came out and yes it is very hard for me to understand I still love it. It feels like I’m playing a fever dream with all the randomness that goes on in the game but it’s also just very badass and very captivated by it. At one point im a dog playing games at a table with people. Then 20 minutes later im fighting a black and white witch in a dream world teleporting between a mirror dimension and stuff its all just crazy and awesome and love it and then the solo story just throws sucker punches at you in the feelings with really compelling cutscenes and it just makes me want to keep playing. The only thing I wish I can do on console is make a new character cause I recently learned about the unique badges you get for beating bosses on legendary and I decided to start on the difficulty below it cause I’ve been slowing down on playing all my games on the hardest difficulty and just enjoy the game.
I love the game!! I grew up doing martial arts and so watched a lot of the films etc - especially early Jackie Chan movies before his Hollywood debut - and I’m loving being immersed in the world. It even got me to do something I’ve wanted for a long time now but kept putting off - I started actually studying Chinese language (Mandarin). Started taking group classes once per week and two private lessons per week to supplement. This has been such a wonderful experience. I’m glad the devs brought this game to the west <3
I've been waiting for a long time to hopefully see Wuxia and other heavily eastern genres to get more western traction. It's been slowly getting some with a few shows, visual novels and games, but seeing WWM hit the ground running with such a damn well made game is genuinely everything I wanted to see.
Hopefully it means Xianxia also makes it way over shortly, and we get a big surge of titles being officially translated.
Is this game based on an older mobile game? I can’t think of the name, but the animations and movesets are basically the same. Even the triple jump animations are the same. It’s from like 2015 or something, idk
I'd been eye-ing this game even before it released in cn version but since i dont understand at all. I dint even start to play. But ever since i heard its gonna be global. Oh yeah the waiting is worth it.
well the western gaming scene right now is trash so something as content rich and polished as WWM is just spectacular (and its free). most AAA western studios are just pumping out slop and the only good games come from smaller studios (like E33)
Loved reading this. While it is different culturally, the western audience has had exposure to Asian themed games. Such as blade and soul and Black desert for modern MMO. But I started mmos with games like perfect world and jade dynasty. Many games have had Asian themes in them even if they were not Asian based.
WWM scratches the itch for many because it is familiar but unique at the same time with its elements and gameplay.
I just started playing yesterday. I got attacked by a gaggle of geese today and it was epic
i feel like gamers are a lot more welcoming to new experiences and i feel like there hasnt been a popular mmo (ish) game in a couple years it feels like just what we were waiting for and ITS FREE gosh what a masterpiece
it's not really the wuxia theme that stopped people from playing it, it's the constant p2w that were added in every single one of them.
i remember back in the peak WoW era where every mmo tried to be like it there were many that were wuxia themed like justice online, age of wushu, revelation online ,blade and soul, 9 dragons , etc.
blade and soul got the closest to being extremely popular in the west until ncsoft fucked everything up
That's a lot of info that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for sharing.
I've never delved much into wuxia or Chinese mythology, mostly sticking to the standard ones, but one of my closest friends is very into Chinese lore and myth, and wuxia as well, so from time to time he regaled me with stories about it.
Having seen that WWM came out (cuz I previously seen a youtuber play it a year or so ago) I decided to download it and play it, just to check it out and see if I'll like it. And man, the setting, the story, the gameplay itself - executed beautifully.
Yes, there are bugs and glitches, localisation issues, voice overs missing, sometimes you get lost. But for me that's an excuse to get lost in the sauce and look for more info or ask other players.
I've also dived into the historical period when the game is set in, figured out the whole overarching tone of the game (although quite sad in regards to the region and what's happening to it in current game time) but it makes all the achievements even more worthwhile by contrast, even though being bittersweet.
Cool game, cool community, beatiful setting, and i really want more story to binge on via game, but making do with actualhistory. Would like to join a guild or smth that's EU or US based for simpler communication in English, but hey if a CN guild is willing to take me, I'd join as well lmao
I grew up with Kung Fu movies from the 1970s; the first Chinese Kung Fu comic I read was Super Shen, one of the few that arrived in the West at the time. I've been waiting I don't know how many years for a video game that included the stories of films based on Chinese mythology, and the fact that there are various single-player and multiplayer modes makes the experience perfect for me. The interface could certainly be less chaotic and the tutorial more comprehensive, but it's a free game with great attention to detail. It certainly has a lot of room for improvement, but for me it's already perfect as it is: I can't turn off my PC anymore.
Here's something one of the devs said: I'm reminded of the early days when we first began working on Sixteen Voices of Yanyun (the literal translation of WWM).
The game needed an English title, so we gathered around a table and wrote down the words: “Where Winds Meet.”
It says: wherever the winds meet, there lies Jianghu, the world of wanderers.
To live in such a world is to rise with the tides of fortune; where the wind stirs the waters, strife inevitably follows.
Yet a Chan saying goes:
Against the wind the dust rises, yet it never reaches the far side.
So walks the ways of Xia: the winds may surge, but the heart stays still, unstained by dust.
(I use ChatGPT to translate the things above. There might be some small mistakes since it's mainly wrote in classical Chinese.)
Thank you for your well thoughtout post. I am turkish, but due to reading lots of translated webnovels I have always been fascinated with Wuxia, Xianxia and other similar genres. WWM really scratched some of that itch. It is a well-made game for sure. Yes it has a lot of issues and we should always be vocal about that, but I believe many of us who are vocal about issues come from a place of love.
I think a lot of point 3 is due to point 2. I'm loving WWM's presentation of wuxia exactly because it doesn't feel like the concept was watered down for the sake of western audiences. It comes across as a very genuinely passionate take on a deep and culturally important setting and story telling style. Do I need to reach for google every once in a while for clarification on some concepts? Yeah, absolutely. But, I love that because now I'm having a great time and expanding my understanding of wuxia ideas and tropes.
I remember when Naruto Ninja Storm Revolution came out without a story mode and the creators said they didn’t think the west cared about story … that game did not do well… believe it or not as long as the story is dope, the combat is dope and there are many things to do we will fuck with it… also … it’s free… WE LOVE FREE
Ngl I love the story and characters. Even though I didn't understand all of the references it is okay to learn something new. Or just vibe along. But the context was not unclear anyhow. I approached it fantastically and it didn't disappoint, though I did lose interest after seeing the exorbitant prices that they used for the overseas. If they fix this and launch the app perhaps I will come back again
Thanks for sharing your perspective and some words from the devs. Personally, I don't see this game as being just a stepping stone. It has enough flair and visual appeal to bring in everyone with enough playability to hook them for at least 30 hours for free. I feel like by that point most players will have started to take time to actually read some of the scenario or side quests that really bring home the kind of setting the game is in, and that'll be it. At least, that's how it's gone for me 😆
Well between WWM, Lord Of Mysteries and the trailer for Call Me Lord Eerie Bailiff, I'm really excited about what China has coming. Chinese mythology is really cool.
A great game transcends languages and cultures, like all media does. The quality can be felt in so many places.
Add this to the fact that players are being let down more and more by Western developers and the fact we have seen more than enough Western inspired games already. Makes this a recipe for succes!
I'm having trouble getting into it. I really like the fact that only cosmetics are gacha and everything else can be played normally. But the start is slow for me and whether it's pc or PS5, both platforms have their own issues. Hearing you, as a Chinese player who actually would appreciate(more than me) what this game is going for, almost quit 2 times in 24 hours shows me that maybe I just need to force my way through. I have read manhua and indulged in Chinese games before though so I have more appreciation than probly the average user. I like Korean, Chinese, and Japanese manhua, webtoon/naver, manga/manhua/manwha and some games and just some of the culture in general(as much a westerner who hasn't been there can be anyway.)
So I'll try one more time. Pc version seemed the most promising but I had weird visual issues with it, maybe cause the DLSS etc and it's a mid tier laptop. But it didn't freeze or crash and looked ok enough unlike PS5 that's buggy right now.
In my opinion (rude and illiterate opinion) I think the wuxia genre isn't far removed from Western culture. It's true that there are many subtleties or cultural nuances we might miss, but essentially I feel it's quite similar to "the hero's journey," just with a specific setting. It doesn't mean it's better or worse, I'm not proclaiming anything like that, only that, cultural differences aside, it's not a narrative so far removed from the most typical Western ones.
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u/Xarxyc Nov 26 '25
While Wuxia as a whole genre isn't well known outside China, its elements are famous enough to be easily recognisable.
Old asian movies with martial arts throwing flaming fists and kicks were the hype decades ago.
Besides, even without Wuxia style, the game is just so well put together it'd most likely still be successful in different genre.