Embark Studios' mega-popular extraction shooter Arc Raiders has some competition on Steam's most-played game chart, as there's a newcomer on the list: the free-to-play, open-world Wuxia fighter Where Winds Meet.
Where Winds Meet is the debut title from Chinese developer Everstone Studio. Set during ancient China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (about 907 to 979 AD), the game is this fantastical amalgam of MMO, action-adventure, and RPG mechanics that seamlessly blends into an open-world environment you can play either in solo or multiplayer modes. There are epic sword fights with flashy combos, Tai Chi moves to basically force-throw animals and enemies, and bosses that rival a From Software game in size and difficulty. Not to mention the wealth of content in the first two regions--Kaifeng and Qinghe--that easily contain hundreds of hours of stuff to do, secrets to find, puzzles to solve, and baddies to beat up. The best part is it's all totally free.
Almost everything you experience in Where Winds Meet is free to play. There are premium currencies to buy, a battle pass to purchase and upgrade, clothes and accessories to fill your (digital) wardrobe with--you know, "free-to-play" stuff. However, the action of the game--the bosses, the weapons, the main and side objectives, the minigames, etc.--doesn't cost you anything to play. That's true of future content as well. Since the game's Chinese servers get new features before the global ones do, players on those servers have shared what's coming to the game in upcoming updates, like new regions to explore and weapons to fight with.
All of this has skyrocketed Where Winds Meet to massive popularity. Following its global launch on November 14 for PC and PS5--it's been out in China since December 2024--the game reached two million players, becoming a top-three best-selling PlayStation game and a top-seven best-selling Steam game.
At the time of this writing, it's also rapidly climbing Steam's charts. According to data tracker SteamDB, Where Winds Meet has a 24-hour peak player count of 251,008, with 201,807 people playing right now. It was so popular that, over the weekend, Where Winds Meet surpassed even Arc Raiders, sitting fourth on Steam's most-played games chart. Arc Raiders now has 207,234 players on right now, putting it above Where Winds Meet, but the two are struggling for fourth. Meanwhile, market research firm Circana states that Where Winds Meet has cracked the top 15 on PC and PS5 for player engagement in the US and Canada.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows for the open-world martial-arts sim, though: The game reportedly uses a ton of generative AI for NPC voice acting and chatbots. One Redditor named MisterZan25 was even able to convince an NPC that they were pregnant with his child, leading the NPC to fall to his knees and weep uncontrollably. On top of that, the game's monetization, while completely ignorable, is a little wild. According to Dexerto, there's a skin that can cost you upwards of $40,000.
Still, this is a free-to-play game with a smattering of content that exposes a global audience to not just Chinese development but ancient Chinese lore as well. This doesn't excuse the wild monetization or disheartening AI usage, but it doesn't necessarily dampen an otherwise impressive Wuxia experience.
Where Winds Meet is available now on PC and PS5, with Android and iOS versions slated to launch on December 31.
Source
Where Winds Meet is the debut title from Chinese developer Everstone Studio. Set during ancient China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (about 907 to 979 AD), the game is this fantastical amalgam of MMO, action-adventure, and RPG mechanics that seamlessly blends into an open-world environment you can play either in solo or multiplayer modes. There are epic sword fights with flashy combos, Tai Chi moves to basically force-throw animals and enemies, and bosses that rival a From Software game in size and difficulty. Not to mention the wealth of content in the first two regions--Kaifeng and Qinghe--that easily contain hundreds of hours of stuff to do, secrets to find, puzzles to solve, and baddies to beat up. The best part is it's all totally free.
Almost everything you experience in Where Winds Meet is free to play. There are premium currencies to buy, a battle pass to purchase and upgrade, clothes and accessories to fill your (digital) wardrobe with--you know, "free-to-play" stuff. However, the action of the game--the bosses, the weapons, the main and side objectives, the minigames, etc.--doesn't cost you anything to play. That's true of future content as well. Since the game's Chinese servers get new features before the global ones do, players on those servers have shared what's coming to the game in upcoming updates, like new regions to explore and weapons to fight with.
All of this has skyrocketed Where Winds Meet to massive popularity. Following its global launch on November 14 for PC and PS5--it's been out in China since December 2024--the game reached two million players, becoming a top-three best-selling PlayStation game and a top-seven best-selling Steam game.
We Meet in the Winds. pic.twitter.com/m9uEsKhh0J
— Where Winds Meet (@WhereWindsMeet_) November 16, 2025
At the time of this writing, it's also rapidly climbing Steam's charts. According to data tracker SteamDB, Where Winds Meet has a 24-hour peak player count of 251,008, with 201,807 people playing right now. It was so popular that, over the weekend, Where Winds Meet surpassed even Arc Raiders, sitting fourth on Steam's most-played games chart. Arc Raiders now has 207,234 players on right now, putting it above Where Winds Meet, but the two are struggling for fourth. Meanwhile, market research firm Circana states that Where Winds Meet has cracked the top 15 on PC and PS5 for player engagement in the US and Canada.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows for the open-world martial-arts sim, though: The game reportedly uses a ton of generative AI for NPC voice acting and chatbots. One Redditor named MisterZan25 was even able to convince an NPC that they were pregnant with his child, leading the NPC to fall to his knees and weep uncontrollably. On top of that, the game's monetization, while completely ignorable, is a little wild. According to Dexerto, there's a skin that can cost you upwards of $40,000.
Still, this is a free-to-play game with a smattering of content that exposes a global audience to not just Chinese development but ancient Chinese lore as well. This doesn't excuse the wild monetization or disheartening AI usage, but it doesn't necessarily dampen an otherwise impressive Wuxia experience.
Where Winds Meet is available now on PC and PS5, with Android and iOS versions slated to launch on December 31.
Source