The "three new cultural trends" have once again gone viral! Where Winds Meet won an award at Gamescom, and the number of its global players has excee

Recently, NetEase, a leading game enterprise based in Hangzhou, presented five self-developed titles at gamescom, and its self-developed open-world wuxia game Where Winds Meet has achieved two major milestones!

On the evening of August 28, the 2026 gamescom Awards were announced in Germany. Where Winds Meet stood out from numerous outstanding works and took home the Best Mobile Game award. This marks the first time a NetEase self-developed game has won an award at the exhibition.

During the exhibition, Where Winds Meet announced that its global player base has exceeded 100 million, making it the first title in China's wuxia open-world genre to reach this milestone.

At present, Hangzhou is striving to build itself into a high-quality development highland and an overseas expansion leader for the "three new cultural products". As a breakout hit of Chinese online games going global, Where Winds Meet has further broken down cultural barriers between the East and the West, sparking a "Chinese cultural trend" across Europe and America. This overseas expansion journey is a microcosm of the vigorous global development of Hangzhou's "three new cultural products" in the cultural sector.

Where Winds Meet Surpasses 100 Million Global Players

Domestic Self-developed Technology Empowers Wuxia Titles to Go Global

Where Winds Meet made its second appearance at gamescom, unveiling its brand-new martial art "Drunken Fist" for the first time, and immersively restored the mythical "Kaifeng Ghost Market" at the exhibition booth. As the first fully China-tech-led game title that successfully entered the mainstream European and American markets, Where Winds Meet continuously relies on its underlying self-developed digital industrial capabilities to allow overseas players to play the role of "Chinese swordsmen", experience the ultimate Chinese aesthetics and cultural heritage, and inject strong new digital momentum into the global "Chinese cultural fever".

Relying on technologies such as self-developed engines, Where Winds Meet has built a huge "ancient Chinese capital city cluster", presenting the unique charm of Chinese culture to the world in a panoramic manner. Based on a seamless huge map covering more than one million square meters, the game smoothly connects the macro territory ranging from the bustling street life of Kaifeng to the Jiangnan water towns of Hangzhou; the real-time ecological calculation of up to 15,000 intelligent NPCs injects real vitality into this digital city; immersive interactions such as shadow puppet viewing and "Tai Chi" fish frying turn complex cultural symbols into intuitive street experiences. Chinese cultural concepts such as "Wuxia" and "Jianghu" have also been spread by word of mouth among overseas players, going global in the form of their direct pinyin translations, allowing Chinese culture to take root subtly in people's hearts.

Simultaneously Advancing Self-development Capability and Cross-platform Distribution

Chinese Games Continue to Break Through in Overseas Mainstream Tracks

Chinese games going global are establishing long-term influence in core international game categories with solid underlying technologies and collaborative distribution networks. Marvel Rivals returned to gamescom after two years, immersively bringing its Season 9 "Thebes Mystery" to the exhibition site. Since its public beta in December 2024, the title has maintained uninterrupted seasonal updates, which proves the high efficiency of the transnational co-development model. High-frequency and high-quality content iterations have allowed Chinese self-developed technology to gain a firm foothold in the international PVP shooter track, setting a reliable benchmark for quality control.

The globalization distribution ecosystem has also matured correspondingly. Once Human launched its console version on the opening night, fully completing the cross-platform interconnection ecosystem covering PC, mobile and console. From topping the iOS download charts in 166 countries and regions after its mobile launch, to now realizing cross-platform convergence with a large-scale expansion, the game closely connects global players with a seamless cross-platform experience. The concentrated exhibition of the two blockbuster titles at gamescom has fully connected the industrial chain from front-end R&D breakthroughs to back-end cross-platform distribution, proving that Chinese games already have mature long-term operation and full-cycle service capabilities in the global mainstream market.

NetEase's Original New Titles Are Poised for Launch

Infinity Will Launch Global Public Beta on January 15

As part of NetEase's original new title pipeline, Infinity and Sea of Oblivion have received extensive industry attention at this gamescom. The urban open-world RPG Infinity was featured on the Opening Live event, officially announcing that its global public beta will be held on January 15, 2027, with planned launches on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, iOS and Android. At present, the global pre-registration volume of this product has exceeded 20 million.

The ocean open-world RPG Sea of Oblivion made its debut at gamescom on August 25, announcing on the gamescom Opening Live the same day that its large-scale Closed Beta Test is scheduled for December this year, and the next day it presented its full-length actual gameplay demo on the IGN Post Show. With the innovative combination of "open-world exploration + naval battle + roguelite turn-based gameplay", Sea of Oblivion injects richer original vitality into Chinese games going global, and attracted a large number of players queuing up to experience it at the gamescom venue. These two poised original works demonstrate NetEase Games' continuous exploration in multiple game categories, and also provide global players with more diverse new title options.

Source of the article: Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce