The free-to-play market is saturated with play-to-win games with players able to clear high-end challenges simply by slapping down money. While pay-to-win often makes money fast, considering the game is popular, it also has a habit of infuriating your players as monetisation eventually worsens.
Where Winds Meet, Everstone Studio’s Wuxia-inspired action-RPG was praised on launch for pushing back against any pay-to-win methods to fund the game’s future development. While not unheard of, the studio explained that they have a commitment to “not selling power or creating pay-to-win mechanics”.
Everstone Studio has been so forthcoming in this statement that an in-game message told players to “play what you love, ignore what you don’t”. In a new interview with FRVR, the team explained that the plan has always been to deliver “a content-first project from the very start”.
“Our top priority is always delivering great experience to players,” they explained. “We focus on making the gameplay feel unique and memorable, and only think about monetisation much later.”
The team explained that they don’t believe theres ever a best monetisation model, but they don’t want to make a game that takes players for a ride. “With Where Winds Meet, we stick to a few simple principles: 1) Spending money does not break overall fairness; 2) Paid content is about self-expression… not about gaining a raw stat advantage over other players; 3) Even if you don’t spend anything, you should still be able to fully enjoy the core game.”
Of course, right now, with over 9 million players enjoying the game’s Western launch alone, there’s no need to dive into the pay-to-win bucket. However, the tea explained that there should never be a moment where the game will abandon its cosmetic-only promise, even if player numbers falter.
“Every game has its own ecosystem and way of sustaining itself,” the team explained, “but for Where Winds Meet, our stance has always been clear: we are sticking to our original vision of a fair experience, free from pay-to-win. We want progress to come from playing the game, not paying more”.
Where Winds Meet is currently set to release its next major update, the 1.3 update, on February 6, 2026.
