If you’ve just booted up Where Winds Meet for the first time, you’ve probably spent 20 minutes or more tweaking every last detail of your character, from eyebrow shape to the cut of your traveling robes. It’s normal to wonder if you’re stuck with those choices forever, especially if you hit a point a few hours in where you wish you’d picked a different look or presentation. The most common question new players ask on community forums right now is can you change gender in Where Winds Meet, and the answer isn’t as straightforward as you might expect. I’ve put 70+ hours into the open-world wuxia game, tested every customization menu I could find, and talked to dozens of other players to get all the facts straight for this guide.
Can You Change Gender in Where Winds Meet After Character Creation?
Right now, the short answer is no, you cannot change your character’s gender once you confirm your initial creation and load into the open world. The developers built the core customization system to lock in gender as a foundational choice, since it impacts a small number of contextual story beats, voice line options, and even some faction interactions you’ll run into as you explore. But that doesn’t mean you have zero flexibility to adjust your character’s presentation later on. Most cosmetic options that are often tied to gender in other games are fully unlocked for all characters in Where Winds Meet, so you can switch up hairstyles, clothing, accessories, and even voice pitch at almost any time, no restrictions attached. I ran into this myself 12 hours into my first playthrough, when I decided I hated the default hairstyle I’d picked for my character. I assumed I’d have to restart, but I found a barber in the first major city that let me swap to any style I wanted, regardless of what gender I’d selected at the start.
What Customization Options Are Unlocked After You Start Playing?
Many players who ask can you change gender in Where Winds Meet are surprised to learn how much flexibility they have even without that specific feature. Even if you can’t switch your core gender marker, you have tons of freedom to adjust your character’s look and feel whenever you want, as long as you have a small amount of in-game silver to pay for the changes. All of these options are available at any barber or tailor NPC in any major settlement, and you don’t have to complete any special quests to unlock them:
- Full hairstyle and facial hair library: Every hairstyle in the game is accessible to all characters, no matter what gender you selected at creation. That includes long flowing styles, short practical cuts, braids, and even traditional topknots reserved for specific groups in wuxia lore.
- All clothing and armor sets: No clothing is locked to a specific gender. You can wear flowing silk robes, heavy plated armor, lightweight traveler’s gear, or even formal court attire no matter what your initial character setup was.
- Voice pitch and tone adjustments: You can tweak your character’s voice anywhere from deep and gruff to high and soft, as many times as you want, for a tiny silver fee at any speech trainer NPC.
- Facial feature and tattoo tweaks: You can adjust eye shape, nose size, skin tone, scar placement, and tattoos at any cosmetic NPC, no restrictions beyond a small cost.
I tested this myself last month when I wanted to give my character a more rugged look after joining a faction of wandering warriors. I swapped my soft, loose braid for a short cropped cut, added a scar across my left cheek, and adjusted my voice to be a little deeper, all in less than five minutes at a local barber. None of these changes required me to create a new account or delete my existing save file. The only thing I couldn’t change was the core gender marker attached to my account, which only impacts a handful of throwaway NPC lines anyway.
When Should You Consider Restarting Your Playthrough?
If you’re asking can you change gender in Where Winds Meet because you hate your character’s current presentation, you almost certainly don’t need to restart to get the look you want. If you’re really unhappy with the gender you selected at the start, restarting is the only option to change that core marker, but that’s only worth doing in a few specific cases. First, if you’re less than two hours into the game, you haven’t lost that much progress. Most of the first two hours is tutorial content anyway, so you can blast back through that in less than 90 minutes if you skip cutscenes you’ve already seen. Second, if you care a lot about the small contextual story beats that change based on your gender, restarting might be worth it for you. Those moments are rare, but they do add a nice layer of immersion for players who want a very specific roleplay experience.
So when is restarting not worth it? If you’re 10+ hours in, have unlocked multiple factions, collected rare gear, or completed major story quests, the tiny number of changes from switching your gender marker are not worth losing all that progress. You can adjust almost every other part of your character to match whatever presentation you want, and most players will never even notice the small contextual differences tied to the core gender marker anyway. I’ve talked to players who have 200+ hours in the game who didn’t even know those small lines existed until they saw someone mention them on Reddit.
Will Gender Change Be Added to Where Winds Meet in Future Updates?
The developers have mentioned in multiple community Q&As that they’re looking into adding a gender change option in a future patch, but there’s no set release date for that feature right now. They’ve noted that the main hold up is adjusting the small number of story beats that are tied to core gender markers, to make sure they don’t break or feel out of place if you switch your gender mid-playthrough. The feature is currently listed as a “high priority” on the official community feedback board, so it’s likely we’ll see it added sometime in the next year, based on the developer’s past update schedule.
In the meantime, if you’re holding out for the feature, you can keep playing your current character without worrying about losing progress. When the gender change option drops, it’s almost guaranteed to be available for existing characters, no restart required, according to early notes from the dev team. You won’t have to pay real money for it either, the team has confirmed it will be available for a small in-game silver fee, just like all other customization options.
At the end of the day, the answer to can you change gender in Where Winds Meet right now is no, but you have so many other customization options available that most players won’t even notice the missing feature. You can adjust almost every part of your character’s look, voice, and style to match whatever presentation you want, without having to restart your playthrough. If you really want to switch your core gender marker, you can either restart early on when you haven’t lost much progress, or wait for the feature to drop in a future update. Either way, you don’t have to let a small initial choice ruin your enjoyment of one of the most immersive wuxia open worlds ever made.
