On a hilltop overlooking the lingering plains of Qinghe, the brightest and most beflowered vision of the Chinese countryside a person could imagine, there stands an academic archer. Feng Jishen wears flowing robes toxd match the waterfall of sleek black hair that spills from his topknot. He came to Qinghe, he explains to your character, a lithe and acrobatic swordsman with a generational score to settle, to study the local flora and fauna on the bidding of his tutor. But as he stood here, watching the birds fly lazy circles on the updraft, Jishen decided to try out his newly made bow and his newly made theorem that, using an obscure move from Wuxia, the mystical, physics-defying martial arts powers that define a vast and ever-popular genre of Chinese cinema, he might slow time to better strike moving targets. Jishen challenges you to a nature-off: shoot down more birds than him within the allotted time and he will gift you his notebook containing the secret knowledge to keep forever.
Arrow-time, as this pre-industrial revolution form of bullet-time might be described, is a staple of most videogames that place any sort of emphasis on ballistics. But in Where Winds Meet, a lavish open-world game from a Chinese team with, it feels, a great deal to prove, this magic seems entirely in keeping with the tone and mythos of its reality. This is a world defined not only by lily pads and swaying reeds, by fields of ostentatiously colourful blooms and giant ancient statues, but by physical sorcery. Still Water, as the time-slurring move is known, is just one option on an overwhelming menu of ‘Mysteries’ available to your character, clandestine skills that subvert, exaggerate, or upturn the rules of the physical world, often in delightful ways.
Some of these moves, which must be learned by first convincing different characters in the world to impart their knowledge, have the subtle intimacy of a close-up card trick. Chi Grip, for example, allows your character to summon distant objects to his hand with a subtle flex of the fingers. You learn the trick while observing a drinking
