The current free-to-play games market is oversaturated by anime girls and gacha mechanics as far as the eye can see. Whether it’s made by Mihoyo or by Nintendo, most F2P RPGs are massive, sprawling and ever-updating adventures designed to drain your pennies with flashy and colorful protagonists with bright and revealing cosmetics.

My first free-to-play live service RPG was Fire Emblem Heroes. As a fan of the core series for years, (A certain fox boy from Fates quite literally being my namesake,) I had to give the new mobile experience a shot. And so I did, sinking many hundreds of hours into it over the years. Long transit rides flew by as I drew for the new seasonal characters and costumes. I’ve quite literally been playing it so long that I don’t know if I’m even able to run out of the game’s premium currency at this point. I have so much.

The genre has seen many extremely successful games in recent years, especially since the release of Genshin Impact, an expansive RPG experience that has been receiving constant massive updates since 2020. Taking the formula of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and essentially uncapping its potential, Genshin features over 100 playable characters, over 2000 quests and over 200 hours of gameplay in just the main story and major side quests. You constantly upgrade your characters, level up, change protagonists, explore new areas and save the world. It never seems to truly end.

This same formula has been used and expanded on in many games since as well, such as Wuthering Waves, Honkai Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero and most recently… Where Winds Meet.

Where Winds Meet takes a more realistic approach to graphics and setting, placing itself in the Song Dynasty era of China. Focusing heavily on a single player story with one single playable protagonist; your own custom avatar. Though every player will progress through the same campaign, you can make this character your own and upgrade them basically however you’d like. Skill trees, clothes, hairstyles and your preferred martial arts styles are all yours to choose. This is what makes the game truly stand out, but also… This is where the game sees its first major downfalls for me personally.

There’s too much to do. I’ve put 15 hours into the game at this point and I still have no clue what half of the menus do, or how to even find most of the menus I’m actually looking for. There’s so much to click. There’s so many red dots telling me I’ve unlocked new things. There’s so many customization options and weapons and settings that… I don’t know where to begin half of the time.

For a single player experience that contains tons of extra content, I usually start by trying to just work through the story first. And the story here is quite rich and full of character! I love the mystery and intrigue as you meet new people and solve the mystery of how they fit into your strange little cast. From the annoying little sister that I’m finally kind of warming up to, Ruby, to the wanted serial murderer, Killer Blade, every character here is well developed and well acted. Sure, I wanna toss that little girl over a cliff sometimes, but I also can’t help but feel for her when she struggles with the idea of you leaving, because despite her size and strength being that of a child, she wants so badly to protect you, because you’re her world. This game nails the character writing and genuinely does make me care about the stakes it sets up for me.

The problem is that as much as I want to get invested in the story and characters, I’m ever being dragged out of it for another pop-up. Another menu. Another 10 pieces of Jade. Another parade event. Another level up. Another skill point. Another shop item. Another banner item. Another guild. Another, another, another…

More content should be a good problem for an RPG to have. It means more to come back to later, right? The open world should feel huge and lived-in and expansive, but I can’t help but notice that so much of this is timed. So many of these things are stuff I’ll miss out on because I’m not constantly scrolling the shop or the menus or the events, because I’m just playing the game as I’d like to be playing it. It’s almost punishing me for just wanting to play the experience that’s been crafted for me, because here’s all the shiny new stuff! The problem is that this whole game is shiny and new, but it’s not the NEWEST thing in the game. The story??? You can experience that whenever you like! That’ll always be there, but this exclusive dress? This exclusive hairstyle? That’s only here today! Miss it and it’s gone forever! Tough luck pal.

And don’t even get me started on just how expensive things are. The premium currency is pricey, and that’s not guaranteed to get you any of the actual banner items, because that’s a random draw with gacha mechanics. Every draw I’ve done so far in-game has only rewarded my with clothing dye (which there is a very limited amount of clothing you can actually dye in-game) or some other form of crafting material that I haven’t quite figured out how to even use yet. (Apparently you can build houses at some point??? Crazy.)

With so many possible character builds and so many quests to complete, I’m sure this game will keep me entertained for a while yet, but I still can’t help but feel like the bar to entry is so far up. It’s an awkward change from how I normally engage with a video game, but what’s there seems like a genuinely cool experience. I’m excited to dive into multiplayer and raids and events when I feel like I’m truly ready to do so, as long as the game doesn’t continue to bully me into doing it earlier.

With more time, I’m certain I’ll keep enjoying it. Most of it. Except the AI Chatbot NPCs that are littered around the world. There is no way I’m engaging with that. I don’t need to roleplay text chat with the local fisherman, I’m good.

Have you been playing Where Winds Meet? If so, what’s your weapon set of choice? I’ve been rocking the dual blades personally, but I really want to try out the fans. Seems fun!