Where Winds Meet is taking us again to “one in every of China’s most wonderful eras,” the Tang Dynasty, with its subsequent main replace, the Hexi enlargement, which kicks off, at no cost, on March 5.
Between March and Might, the workforce will launch Hexi’s three chapters in sequence, taking wanderers “from desert to ice fields to grasslands,” beginning with Jade Gate Move subsequent week.
“In historic China, mates would write poems for one another. Consider these three chapters as our poem to all of you,” the workforce defined, stressing that this marks “a way more cinematic strategy to storytelling” that feels “fairly completely different from our earlier storytelling.”
Set in an enormous desert panorama, developer Everstone Video games stated the Hexi enlargement represents the “largest enlargement because the recreation’s launch, and can provide up brand-new narratives, new bosses, recent gameplay options, and martial artwork kinds.” We will anticipate three main maps, which, mixed, boast almost 20 sub-regions, 11 distinctive bosses, seven Jianghu Legacies, “dozens” of facet quests, and “a lot extra.” There’s additionally a brand new path known as Bamboocut-Mud, with two new martial arts for Umbrella and Roped Dart. Umbrella’s Spring Dreamscape is “all about agility,” whereas Rope Dart’s Fleeting Clouds is “all about massive, sweeping AOE assaults.”
The stream confirmed off a few of these aforementioned boss fights intimately;, together with Jade Gate Move’ marketing campaign boss, Guo Xin, the growing older basic and final grand protector who “stays at his submit defending the land to the very finish.” He’ll come at you with “sweeping combos and summon veterans to combat alongside him,” so you may want to make use of your deflects properly to guard towards his assaults. His second part, however, boasts “sands swirl and time reverses” as the decision of his military “jostles him again to his prime,” enabling him to unleash his full energy.
We additionally get a sneak peek at Wandering Ark, which, I am delighted to say, is strictly what it feels like — an enormous ship. As soon as a messenger, it is now obsessive about discovering its approach residence by means of the desert. When you grasp on after the principle presentation finishes, there’s additionally a very good chunk of the battle towards Hexi’s Moongazing Maiden boss combat, too, the place all the talents and weapons are associated to the moon.
Whereas the stream targeted totally on the desert, we additionally paid fleeting visits to the upcoming Liangzhou and Qingchuan maps, too. The previous is a metropolis identified for its superb wine and valuable jade in our first snow mountain area, and the latter, your last vacation spot, the place you may cycle by means of all 4 seasons on one map and discover warring factions in every single place you flip.
Better of all, although, Everstone confused that every one your progress carries over from season to season, together with character ranges, skills, and arsenals, so there’s “no want to begin from scratch.”
As for goodies? This is simply a few of what you’ll be able to anticipate:
- 30+ Lingering Melody
- 90+ Resonating Melody (consists of pulls obtained by way of free Echo Jade earned by means of exploration)
- 100+ Appearances and objects
- Win unique Whirl of Radiance outfit (obtained by means of exploration)
- 100+ Beautiful Rewards, together with Appearances like Burlap Sack, Bride’s Bloom, Struggle Drum and extra, the White-Headed Basic Avatar, the Radiant Horizons Nameplate, and the Who Else? And Pluck Stars Emotes
That is not all! Everstone additionally revealed a slew of recent quality-of-life updates, too, which we have summarized under:
Cross-platform optimization and improved stability
- Efficiency and stability optimizations:
- Efficiency and reminiscence utilization have been optimized throughout all platforms. This successfully reduces crashes, guaranteeing a extra secure and dependable total expertise.
- Dynamic scene enhancements:
- Optimized object movement in dynamic scenes to make display transitions and motion processes smoother and extra pure.
- Unified cross-platform expertise:
- By way of complete changes throughout all platforms, we’ve improved the consistency of the gameplay expertise on completely different units.
- Optimized notifications for Compendium, Achievements, Occasions, Martial Arts, and Guilds. We hope to make sure well timed and clear data supply for all gamers whereas minimizing distractions and repetitive alerts.
Console management upgrades and smoother interactions
- PS5 controller optimization:
- Adjusted controller inputs for the Taiping Mausoleum and choose occasions to boost intutitiveness and dealing with.
- Focus and cursor show optimization:
- Optimized the logic for controller focus show and glued cursor points, making UI navigation clearer and extra secure.
- Polished console expertise:
- Additional improved interplay particulars on consoles to attenuate management interference and enhance total gameplay expertise.
Stock administration upgrades
- Recycling and sorting enhancements:
- Optimized the interplay of the recycling interface to assist the fast recycling of a number of merchandise sorts, enhancing sorting effectivity.
- Quick recycle now obtainable:
- Added a Quick Recycle operate to rapidly course of expired, discarded, and recyclable objects in bulk.
- Merchandise categorization and stacking optimization:
- Launched new merchandise categorization strategies and elevated the stack restrict for sure Life Supplies, maintaining your stock clear and arranged.
Gameplay and social updates
- Guild gameplay updates:
- Added numerous Guild-related gameplay modes and challenges to counterpoint fight kinds and play decisions.
- Guild Struggle optimization:
- Adjusted league and command mechanisms to scale back interference, guaranteeing smoother fight move.
- Social characteristic upgrades:
- Added a number of chat channels and group chat capabilities to facilitate interplay amongst gamers and permit sharing of Jianghu tales.
Where Winds Meet’s Hexi enlargement will be pre-downloaded from at the moment (February 27). “To wrap up, Hexi is a cinematic open world expertise. Three chapters, tons of inventive storytelling. We actually hope this ardour mission brings one thing recent to all of you,” the workforce stated.
The Wuxia open-world action-adventure RPG set in historic China debuted on PC and PlayStation 5 on November 14, topping 9 million gamers in simply two weeks. The cell model launched on December 12.
It did not take lengthy for gamers to seek out inventive — and extremely amusing — methods to utilize the sport’s chatbot NPCs, together with taking a novel strategy to fixing riddles by… merely telling the sport’s AI-powered chatbot NPCs that they’ve solved the sport’s riddles.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, in addition to a critic, columnist, and marketing consultant with 15+ years expertise working with a number of the world’s largest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.