Where Winds Meet Expands to Desert
NetEase's open-world RPG Where Winds Meet launches its first major "Hexi" expansion on March 6 with Chapter 1: Jade Gate Pass. The expansion introduces a desert region, new storylines, and challenging bosses, broadening appeal for both RPG and open-world fans.
The "Hexi" expansion unfolds as a three-part saga from March to May 2026. Following Jade Gate Pass, the story will move to a snow-capped mountain map in Chapter 2's "Liangzhou" and conclude in a vast grassland called Qinchuan, ultimately adding three major maps with almost 20 sub-regions. New traversal and exploration abilities are central to the expansion. Players can learn "Sand Race" to surf across the desert for faster travel and "Cosmic Reversal," a skill that rewinds time to rebuild ruins, unlocking puzzles and secrets. A new martial arts style, the "Wandering Dervish Discipline," even allows players to control sand and wind. The expansion will introduce eleven new bosses. Among them are Guo Xin, a campaign boss in Whitecrown City, and the Wandering Ark, a massive, mobile world boss that roams the desert on a giant vessel. This new adventure is set within a dreamworld inspired by the Tang Dynasty, an era known as a golden age of culture in China. This provides a distinct narrative setting, separate from the main game's timeline which takes place during the more chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period that followed the Tang's collapse. Developer Everstone Studio is also adopting a more "cinematic approach to storytelling" for the Hexi expansion. This new content will allow players to inhabit the roles of historical figures and witness events of the era through their eyes. *Where Winds Meet* is a free-to-play game that launched in November 2025 on PC and PlayStation 5. The developer has stated its monetization model focuses on cosmetics and battle passes, with no pay-to-win mechanics.
