New MMO on the block Where Winds Meet promises to never become pay-to-win, greeting players with the message "your legend is written by skill and choice, never by wallet size"

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The new starting screen makes some big promises

The Qianye boss in Where Winds Meet
(Image credit: NetEase Games)

Where Winds Meet surpassed 2 million players in the first 24 hours of launch on Steam and PS5, thanks in no small part to it being free-to-play. As with all new 'freemium' games, we begin to question how the game will be monetized before we invest too much time into them.

As a general rule, people are happy to pay real money for a skin that makes you look like Skibidi Toilet, but less pleased if there are weapons, armor, and worst of all, levels for sale. In any game that has PvP, no one wants to have to get their wallet out in order to keep up with the ever-evolving meta.

Everstone Studio has added some notices for people to read when they boot up Where Winds Meet, and it is making some lofty promises. One of the messages tells players to, "play what you love, ignore what you don't," and promises players that, "the rewards follow your choices, not the other way around."

The message is trying to assuage our fears over how monetization in Where Winds Meet will work. "Our monetization focuses on appearances, battle passes, and monthly passes," the message continues. "Let us be crystal clear: there is no P2W here. Your legend is written by skill and choice, never by wallet size. We will never sell power. We will never compromise the integrity of combat and gameplay for profit. This is our promise."

Whether Everstone Studio keeps up with its promises, or falls down the portal of Diablo Immortal, we'll have to wait to see.

Battered and bruised Where Winds Meet players rally together to rid the Wuxia open-world MMO of its demonic geese: "Yeet into the water. Every single one of them"

George Young
George Young
Freelance News Writer

Freelance writer, full-time PlayStation Vita enthusiast, and speaker of some languages. I break up my days by watching people I don't know play Pokemon pretty fast.

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