Where Winds Meet is preparing its second major expansion titled Imperial Palace, which will be released on May 28. Separately, the developers shared how the update has been adapted for PlayStation 5 Pro.

In the new arc, the team aimed to convey the atmosphere of a vibrant Eastern imperial court. To achieve this, a lot of attention was paid to optimization, ensuring that the historical background and fast-paced wuxia-style battles run smoothly and without stutters.

The expansion will open the Imperial Palace of Kaifen — a vast forbidden city covering over a million square meters. It will feature over 3000 dynamic NPCs that create the feeling of a living court.

The player will enter under the guise of an investigation and eventually join the Office of Martial and Virtue — an elite intelligence department at the court. Thus, gradually, they will have to unravel hidden secrets concealed in the very center of power. In addition to the espionage aspect, there will also be domestic activities in the palace: Cricket Fighting, winter Ice Frolicking, escaping from the Imperial Prison, trying royal cuisine, and meetings with martial arts masters.

Among the dangers are the Sealed Treasury, Underground Confinement Tower, and world bosses like Silken Wrath and Royal Kitten.

On PlayStation 5, the update has been optimized for complex scenes: from crowded imperial streets to large court events and battles with massive visual effects.

The PS5 Pro version will feature ray-traced reflections — that is, traced reflections that are particularly noticeable on the water inside the palace. It is also claimed to provide stable performance at around 60 fps in large palace locations. Thanks to the updated PSSR, an image scaling technology, finer details such as roofs, ceiling paintings, and lantern textures will look better, and ghosting and flickering during rapid camera movement will be reduced.