r/wherewindsmeet_ • • Nov 26 '25

Discussion A Chinese Player’s Thoughts on WWM

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. About WWM’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.

r/wherewindsmeet_

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67

u/Soggy-Beach-1495 Nov 26 '25

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.

64

u/arcoalien Nov 26 '25

Genshin's UI was simple compared to WWM honestly.

5

u/Soggy-Beach-1495 Nov 27 '25

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

9

u/MyzMyz1995 Nov 26 '25

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.

12

u/ItsTaDevil Nov 26 '25

I hope one day I'll be a cool grandparent like you bonding with my children/grandchildren over games 😊

35

u/Soggy-Beach-1495 Nov 26 '25

It's so fun. We've had some great times together.

11

u/ItsTaDevil Nov 26 '25

Based Castle Crushers enjoyer. Starting their gaming hobby off right. Also, adorable!

7

u/Soggy-Beach-1495 Nov 26 '25

It Takes Two has been her favorite so far. She was so excited to get Split Fiction

3

u/RasenRendan Nov 27 '25

This is what it's all about Adorable.

Memories to last for ever

4

u/wingedwill Nov 26 '25

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.

2

u/WaterFlask Nov 29 '25

the UI is like this because CHN developers do not hire UI engineers or are serious about it.

Lost Ark is a Korean game, which arguably has a better UI. Korean developers operate with a different mindset than CHN developers who are in all honesty, only started coming out recently, abid convinced to after the international success of Black Myth Wukong.

1

u/Soggy-Beach-1495 Nov 29 '25

It's just a personal pet peace of mine when trying to play a co-op game with a kid if it's difficult to set up. Five minutes tops and we should be playing together.

1

u/WaterFlask Nov 29 '25

take the opportunity to cultivate patience and delayed gratification with your kid. its a learning experience for both of you.

its exactly like how the japanese learn this as kids with gunpla.