When Where Winds Meet first released in December 2024, it promised a sprawling wuxia adventure where martial arts, exploration, and player freedom came together to create something unlike anything else on the market. Ever since then, Everstone Studio has gradually expanded 0its world, but the latest Version, 2.0: Hidden Mountain, is without a doubt its biggest leap forward yet.
Hidden Mountain introduces a beautiful new setting that is inspired by Mohist philosophy and ancient Chinese engineering. This comes complete with towering mechanical cities, new combat styles, expansive dungeons, intricate environmental puzzles, and some of the best boss encounters in the game. Developments: Everstone have found the confidence to push its world beyond traditional wuxia conventions, which is welcomed, seeing as Where Winds Meet is a game, and you can have creative freedoms.
Unfortunately, even though it is a huge new update. Hidden Mountain comes burdened with a long list of technical problems. During my playthrough, I encountered countless bugs ranged from amusing visual glitches to progression-breaking issues that required restarting quests or relaunching the game entirely, even though I know I got hold of an earlier build and there was talk of some bugs I didn’t expect it to be this bad.
You would have thought that when the update landed, these bugs would have been fixed, but sadly that wasn’t the case. These problems did, at times, ruin my enjoyment. I made myself power through so that I could explore the new region and get the most out of the strongest updates that Where Winds Meet has received.
Even with these frustrations, Hidden Mountain does remain an expansion worth your time and exploration. Just be willing to accept a few bumps along the way.
I think the best way for me to cover this update is to break it down into the different elements and then conclude it overall, so to start with let’s talk about the gameplay in Hidden Mountain.
Gameplay – 8/10
This update constantly encourages curiosity. Rather than solely relying on a checklist of collectables and repetitive side activities, this new region rewards you for exploration. With the vertical exploration, it becomes the defining feature in Hidden Mountain. There are towering mountain peaks, hidden caverns, ancient ruins, underground facilities and enormous mechanical structures that all interconnect in a surprisingly good way that makes exploration enjoyable.
Every area feels handcrafted, which allows exploration to unfold naturally. One moment I was climbing narrow cliff paths that overlooked vast valleys, and then I’d be descending into forgotten laboratories that are powered by elaborate machinery. With the new Mohist-inspired technology, we get new environmental mechanics. I had to manipulate ancient devices, activate complex machinery, solve environmental puzzles and unlock hidden pathways using newly acquired abilities.
Thanks to these additions, exploration becomes far more in-depth than just climbing every mountain in sight to progress the story.
The environment isn’t the only thing that gets new glowing features. The combat also benefits from meaningful additions. The new Gauntlet weapon offers a refreshing change of pace from the more traditional swordplay the game is known for. These new weapons allow for fast combinations, aggressive attacks, and satisfying impacts that make every encounter feel dynamic, while new martial arts and movement abilities favour the new experimentation.
Then we have the boss encounters. Several of Hidden Mountain’s major fights make you carefully observe their patterns and movements rather than just going at them with brute strength. You must learn attack patterns, exploit weaknesses and change your strategy to overcome these battles. This allows for the boss fight to become more memorable rather than just an obstacle in the way.
These gameplay features are where Where Winds Meet is at its strongest in the Version 2.0 Hidden Mountain update.
Story – 8/10
I don’t want to spoil anything with this preview, but I will say that Hidden Mountain tells one of the game’s most compelling stories to date. As a player, you don’t get overwhelmed with lengthy expositions. The expansion allows its setting to guide and tell most of the narrative organically. This comes in the form of ancient ruins, abandoned workshops, broken machines, and forgotten settlements that gradually reveal the rise and fall of the fascinating civilisation built upon engineering rather than mysticism.
The Mohist influence definitely gives the expansion a unique identity rarely explored within wuxia-inspired games. It creates a Steampunk-like atmosphere that feels equal parts historical fantasy and ancient science fiction. The story’s pacing occasionally slows during longer quests, but the central mystery remains engaging throughout.
Graphics & World Design – 9/10
Version 2.0: Hidden Mountain is visually stunning. This has to be Everstone Studio’s most impressive region in the game. Filled with dense forests, towering cliffs and massive mechanical cities. It blends seamlessly into traditional Chinese architecture. Every new location feels distinct while still fitting naturally within the world established in previous updates.
Along with the lighting, weather effects and environmental detail, it all combines to create countless moments where I would just stop and admire the scenery, which I love to do in video games. To just get lost in their worlds. Hats off to the environmental artists as they deserve an enormous shout out for Hidden Mountain.
Audio – 7/10
The soundtrack complements the update massively, really swinging into a mysterious atmosphere vibe. We have the traditional Chinese instruments that we love from previous updates but with a subtle mechanical undertone that reinforces the expansion’s unique identity. There is a fantastic shift in tone when traversing the world, whether that be peaceful exploration or intense combat, the soundtrack complements just about everything.
The Combat sound effects feel impactful, particularly when using the new Gauntlet weapon, while ambient audio helps bring every region to life. I wasn’t too solid on the English voice acting in Where Winds Meet, but luckily you have the option to switch it up. Occasionally, while playing, there was a bug where characters were repeating dialogue lines or not talking at all. This kind of ruined some of the more impactful key scenes, which was frustrating.
Performance & Technical Issues – 5/10
Like mentioned numerous times above, performance & technical issues are where this update heavily stumbles. Throughout multiple play sessions, I encountered a wide Range of bugs. This is kind of common now in most games nowadays, which is upsetting, but it ranged from animation glitches, NPC pathfinding problems and visual oddities that briefly interrupted immersion. Then we come onto the more serious ones.
Multiple quests refused to progress correctly, dialogue triggers occasionally failed to activate, objectives sometimes remained incomplete despite meeting every requirement and several progression blockers required me to restart the quest or, in some cases, restart the game altogether. These issues were equally inconsistent, and certain areas seemed to run more smoothly before suffering massive frame-rate drops, stuttering or noticeable asset pop-ins without warning.
These moments mostly seem to occur when the expansion was trying to show off its more visually spectacular moments. Everstone Studio has begun pushing hotfixes out to address the many issues, but the problem for me is that if you want to play updates day one as soon as they drop, you shouldn’t have to go through countless bugs and problems for the dev to turn around and fix the issues after you have either suffered through the problems or just given up as it becomes unplayable.
Value – 8/10
For the most part, when it comes to content, Hidden Mountain offers exceptional value. When we get given a vast new region, numerous side quests, hidden secrets, challenging bosses, a fresh weapon class, and some quality-of-life improvements, there are dozens of hours of gameplay available for us returning players. The sheer amount of content helps me overlook the technical frustrations, but it is disappointing as beneath those problems lies Where Winds Meet’s richest updates.
The Verdict
Where Winds Meet: Version 2.0 Hidden Mountain is an expansion that is clearly built on ambition. Everstone Studio takes a bold creative risk by introducing Mohist-inspired engineering, layered vertical exploration, intricate environment puzzles, and fantastic new combat mechanics that elevate Where Winds Meet beyond its earlier updates. At its best, this is everything use players would wish for with a massive update, but unfortunately, technical issues prevent Hidden Mountain from reaching its full potential.
Frequent bugs, inconsistent performance, and progression-breaking glitches repeatedly impede the experience, making it difficult to recommend without reservations. As it stands, you would be better off waiting until these issues have been fixed. If you can overlook these problems, then I genuinely enjoyed my time exploring Hidden Mountain. Every time a bug threatened to derail the experience, another spectacular vista or memorable boss fight would remind me of why I need to persevere.
When Everstone improves stability and polishes this update, which I’m sure they are hard at work on, then Hidden Mountain has every chance of being the defining expansion for Where Winds Meet, though as it stands it fails to live up to its true potential.
Where Winds Meets Hidden Mountain Expansion Review
This review was based off a PC playthrough.
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
