Can players get on board with AI in games? Where Winds Meet proves there’s room for it, “I never thought I’d enjoy giving life advice to AI bots, but here we are”

Whenever a game uses AI for anything (or worse, doesn’t admit it), most players see it as an immediate red flag. Even small things like AI-made calling cards in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 or AI-generated translations in The Alters get huge backlash. News about Square Enix wanting AI to handle most of QA testing or Krafton trying to become an “AI-first” company only made people even more frustrated. But it does seem like there is a way to use artificial intelligence in games without setting everyone off.

No one’s hating on AI when you can make an NPC break down in tears

Where Winds Meet is a free-to-play, open-world action RPG built around classic wuxia vibes (wandering martial-arts heroes in ancient China, fighting for justice and chasing their own sense of honor). We can explore a huge, living world with 20+ regions, from dense forests and ancient temples to bustling cities. I’m not going to explain what an open-world RPG is, I think we all know that formula by now.

Source: Where Winds Meet; Developer: Everstone Studio

What does set it apart is its AI chatbot system. Normally, hearing “AI” in a game is enough to make people angry, but in this case, it’s actually working surprisingly well. The game only launched a few days ago and already has nearly an 80% positive rating on Steam, with around 100k concurrent players daily.

In Where Winds Meet, some NPCs let you type whatever you want instead of picking from set dialogue options, and their replies are powered by a language model. It feels like a blank canvas – you can say anything, and naturally, players have been having a blast experimenting and seeing how far they can push this feature.

Reddit is already full of posts about the weird conversations in Where Winds Meet. One player asked an NPC about a dish, and the NPC suggested using ketchup, which didn’t even exist in the Song Dynasty. Then they tried to mess with the NPC by bringing up a language code issue, trying to throw it completely out of its era, but the devs put some limits in place.

Interestingly, if you help these in-game characters, they’ll give you weekly gifts. Someone even shared an example and joked, “I never thought I’d enjoy giving life advice to AI bots, but here we are.” Of course, some people have taken it further and started really abusing the chatbot system, convincing an NPC that their character was pregnant with his child, demanding child support, and then saying the child had died. Next, they’re planning to tell him he’s just a video game character and watch him freak out. At this point, it really feels like we need some kind of “AI bullying” rules, because this poor NPC is getting absolutely tormented (don’t worry, I’m obviously joking).

Source: Reddit

Jokes aside, it looks like many players agree that when AI is used to make a game more immersive or personalized, rather than simply to cut production costs, it’s generally fine. That said, some argue that leaning on chatbots can be a lazy shortcut instead of proper character development.

Where Winds Meet isn’t the first to try this, some Roblox games have been experimenting with AI chatbots, and there are even mods for Minecraft and Cyberpunk 2077 that let you talk to NPCs beyond the usual pre-set lines. There was also a rumor a while back that GTA 6 might include something similar.

Let’s just hope the NPCs in Where Winds Meet don’t go full dark mode like some AI-powered kids’ toys, which started giving unsafe advice during long chats, from how to light matches to glorifying dying in battle. Push it too far, and poor Zhao Dali might go rogue too.

Where Winds Meet

November 14, 2025

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• Overview

• free-to-play
• action RPG
• AI / Artificial Intelligence