Where Winds Meet has quickly become a fan favorite among Wuxia RPG fans thanks to its massive open world, deep combat system, and surprising level of player freedom. You can craft your own martial arts style, align with any of the game’s dozen factions, and even adjust almost every part of your character after you finish the prologue. One of the most common questions new players ask as they progress through the early game is how the where winds meet change gender mechanic works, since many people pick a random gender at launch before they know what customization options are available later on. It’s a lot more accessible than you might think, and you don’t have to start a whole new playthrough if you regret your initial choice.
How the Where Winds Meet Change Gender System Works
Unlike many other RPGs that lock your character’s gender after you finish the initial creation screen, Where Winds Meet lets you adjust it whenever you want once you hit a certain point in the main story. You won’t have access to the feature during the prologue, since the game locks most customization tools until you finish the opening quest line and reach the first major hub city, Jiangcheng. That takes most players between one and two hours, depending on how much they stop to explore the starting forest area.
Once you make it to Jiangcheng, you’ll need to complete a short side quest for the local tailor NPC, Master Li, to unlock the full character adjustment menu. The quest is called “Lost Delivery”, and it only requires you to run to the west gate of the city to pick up a package of cloth from a courier. It takes less than 10 minutes to finish, and you’ll get 100 silver and a free cosmetic hat as a reward on top of unlocking the customization features.
You can change gender as many times as you want once you unlock the feature, though the cost goes up slightly each time you do it. The first switch costs 300 silver, the second costs 500, and the cost caps at 1500 silver per change after your fourth switch. Silver is easy to farm in Jiangcheng through daily delivery quests and selling extra foraging materials, so even the capped cost is pretty manageable even for new players.
Key Things to Know Before You Switch Your Character's Gender
Before you spend your hard-earned silver on a gender switch, there are a few important details you should know to avoid unexpected surprises. The system is designed to be as player-friendly as possible, but there are a few small changes that happen when you switch that you should prepare for ahead of time. Most of these are easy to work around, but it’s better to know about them before you confirm the change.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what does and doesn’t change when you switch your character’s gender:
- All your level, skill progress, quest completion status, and inventory items carry over 100% with no changes, so you won’t lose any of the progress you’ve made in the main story or side content
- Gender-locked armor and cosmetic items will be swapped to the equivalent style for your new gender, or stored in your wardrobe if no direct equivalent exists, so you won’t lose any rare items you’ve collected
- Some romanceable NPC side quests will reset if you were in the middle of progressing them before the gender switch, since a small number of NPCs have gender preferences for their romance paths
- Your character's face and body customization presets will be reset, so you'll need to remake your look after the change, and you won’t be able to go back to your old preset unless you saved it manually beforehand
Gender-locked side quests are not permanently lost if you switch back later, so you don’t have to worry about missing out on content forever if you decide to change genders mid-playthrough. If you’re in the middle of a romance quest you want to finish, you can either wrap it up before you switch, or switch back later to pick up where you left off. There’s no limit on how often you can switch, so you can easily bounce between genders if you want to test different quest lines or armor sets.
Step-by-Step Walkthrough to Use the Gender Change Feature
Once you’ve unlocked Master Li’s customization menu, using the gender change feature is pretty straightforward, but it’s easy to miss the toggle if you don’t know where to look. I’ve seen a lot of new players spend 20 minutes clicking through the customization menus looking for the option, so this step-by-step walkthrough will help you get it done in just a couple of minutes.
First, fast travel to the East Market waypoint in Jiangcheng City. The tailor shop is right across from the tea house, with a bright blue cloth sign hanging above the door so it’s hard to miss. Walk up to Master Li and interact with him, then select the “Adjust Character Appearance” option from the top of his dialogue menu. You’ll get a pop-up warning you that the change will cost silver, so confirm that you have enough to proceed to the customization screen.
The gender toggle is at the top left corner of the customization screen, right above the face preset options. Click the toggle to switch to your preferred gender, then take as much time as you want to adjust your character’s face, hair, body type, and voice to match what you want. Once you’re happy with your new look, click the confirm button at the bottom right of the screen, and the change will take effect immediately.
Save your game before you start the customization process in case you don’t like the new look and want to revert without spending extra silver. You can also save your new character preset to the in-game preset library, so you can easily switch back to that exact look later if you decide to change genders again down the line. It only takes a couple of clicks to save a preset, and it saves you a lot of time if you like to switch up your character’s look often.
Common Issues With the Gender Change Feature (And How to Fix Them)
While the gender change system works pretty smoothly for most players, there are a few common bugs and issues that people run into when they use it for the first time. None of these issues are game-breaking, and most of them have simple fixes that take less than a minute to try, so you don’t have to panic if you run into something weird after you switch genders.
The most common issue is that the gender toggle doesn’t show up in Master Li’s customization menu, even after you finish the Lost Delivery side quest. That usually happens if you haven’t completed the main story quest “Stranger in Jiangcheng” yet, which is the quest that unlocks all of the city’s NPC services. You can finish that quest in about 20 minutes by following the main story marker, and the toggle will appear as soon as you turn it in.
Another common issue is that some of your armor pieces don’t show up in your inventory right after you switch genders. That’s a minor visual bug that happens when the game is swapping the armor to the new gender’s equivalent style. All you have to do to fix it is fast travel to any other waypoint on the map and come back to Jiangcheng, and all your armor pieces will be back in your inventory or wardrobe where they belong.
If you lose access to a romance quest after you switch genders, you don’t have to start over completely. If you want to keep pursuing that NPC, you can switch back to your previous gender to pick up the quest where you left off, or you can wait 7 in-game days and the quest will become available again for your new gender if that NPC is attracted to multiple genders. There are no permanent penalties for using the gender change feature, even if you switch multiple times in a single playthrough, so you don’t have to worry about breaking your save file or missing content.
The gender change feature is available for all player characters, regardless of level or faction affiliation once you unlock it, so even if you’re aligned with a more conservative martial arts sect, you won’t lose any reputation or access to faction quests when you switch genders. That’s a deliberate choice from the devs to make sure players have full control over their character’s identity without being punished for it.
At the end of the day, the where winds meet change gender system is one of the most thoughtful and player-friendly customization features I’ve seen in a modern RPG. It doesn’t lock you into a choice you made 10 minutes into the game, and it doesn’t force you to spend real money to adjust your character to match how you want to play. If you’ve been thinking about switching up your character’s look or trying out different gender-locked quest lines, don’t hesitate to test it out once you make it to Jiangcheng. It’s cheap, easy to use, and there’s no downside to experimenting with different looks and playstyles as you explore the game’s massive open world.
