Is Where Winds Meet the next big MMO?

Michael Hassall Published November 24, 2025

Lets face it: It’s been a long dry spell for MMO fans. We’re a year into WoW: The War Within, FFXIV: Endwalker’s expansion cycles, and most fans have gravitated away from traditional MMOs this year only to MMO-lites like Warframe, and Path of Exile, or legacy games like FFXI and Old School RuneScape.

So when an MMO breaks a quarter of a million players on Steam, and possibly surges towards millions of players globally, it’s time to take note. Is Where Winds Meet the next big MMO? Lets find out.

Image Credit: Everstone Studio/NetEase Gamees

What is Where Winds Meet?

Where Winds Meet is an open world online adventure game based in the mythology of “Wuxia,” that is, Chinese fantasy and martial arts. Set in a historicized version of China, your character is a young sword master set to journey across the land and discover your place in the world. Helmed by Everstone Studios, and distributed by veteran MMO publisher and Chinese WoW distributer NetEase, Where Winds Meet is a dive into a fantasy realm heavily inspired by much of the far east.

The game launched on Nov. 14, but over the past week or so has slowly risen in popularity. That’s because of the game’s solid PvE mechanics, compelling story, and impressive visuals. The Wuxia setting is one we’ve not seen much, particularly from western games, so that’s also pretty enticing.

Image Credit: Everstone Studio/NetEase Gamees

Is Where Winds Meet a true MMO?

Unfortunately, Where Winds Meet is not a traditional MMO in the sense that not all areas and content are open to every player. Instead, there’s a co-op campaign with friends and a shared “Jianghu” world for MMO-style activities, like socialising, trading, etc. The wrinkle is that once you’re in Jianghu mode, the main story of the game is disabled.

However, with the co-op, and randomized MMO elements, there’s still some of the parts of MMOs players love and recognize, such as raids, dungeons, etc. The progression still matches that of an MMO, so for those who love grinding and building their character, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Where Winds Meet details, platform, etc.

Where Winds Meet is free-to-play and on multiple platforms with cross-play. You can pick it up on PlayStation 5, Windows, Steam, and even on mobile. For best performance we’d recommend Steam though, which is where we’ve picked up the game.

Where Winds Meet peaked at 251,008 players this past weekend, making it one of the most-played games on Steam by a long margin.

Should you play Where Winds Meet?

Where Winds Meet definitely scratches an itch. The game provides the MMO staples without too much friction between its single-player-focused story and its Co-op battles. While it would have been nice for the expansive open world to cater more too traditional MMO fans, we’ve seen a move towards the MMO-lite style, and Where Winds Meet definitely falls into that category.

This author has written before about how Christmas and the holiday season are the ideal times for playing MMOs (the long breaks from school and work, the social aspects, etc.) and if you’re looking for your fix this winter, we’d suggest Where Winds Meet.

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