Anime Sector's Tale of Two Extremes: Where Winds Meet Breaks 100 Million and Wins Gamescom Award, While MiHoYo's AI Game Shuts Down After Just 2 Months
Same day, two completely different fates. On August 28, NetEase's Where Winds Meet announced it had surpassed 100 million global players, and that very evening it took home the "Best Mobile Game" trophy at Gamescom. Meanwhile, MiHoYo's AI companion game B-Side: Olivia Lin officially shut down today (August 31) — less than two months after its launch. On one side, a billion-player wuxia celebration; on the other, a silent closure notice. The anime-style gaming sector in 2026 is a tale of fire and ice. Let's look at the hot side first. Where Winds Meet launched its PC open beta in China in December 2024, expanded overseas to Steam, PS, and Epic on November 15, 2025, with cross-platform progression — and has now surpassed 100 million global players, making it the first wuxia open-world game in China to reach that milestone, and the first Chinese wuxia open-world title ever to break 100 million players. On September 4, the official "100 Million Heroes Celebration" kicks off. Now for the cold side: B-Side: Olivia Lin was an AI companion game MiHoYo released on Steam, focused on chatting and interacting with an AI character. On August 12, the studio announced a "phased planning adjustment," rolled out an offline version on August 27, and officially delisted and shut down today. From launch to closure — less than two months. The chain reaction is unfolding in parallel. First wave: headliner titles keep dropping new content. On August 28, Zenless Zone Zero's Version 3.2 special program "Her Hidden Past" aired, introducing new agents Clara and Roxie; Wuthering Waves Version 3.6 "Mirage Shadows, Mortal Swords" updated on August 7, adding new 5-star characters Qingxiao and Jingran. The content-update race among top-tier games is visibly intensifying — not over gacha mechanics, but over content and production value. Second wave: money is concentrating at the top. Arknights' Endfield surpassed $1.2 billion in global revenue in just two weeks post-launch, and PC/PS revenue exceeded mobile — breaking the "mobile dependence" curse that has long plagued anime games; Kuro's Wuthering Waves qualified for Tencent's "evergreen game" list — a threshold requiring quarterly average DAU of 5 million and annual revenue over RMB 4 billion. What about the small and mid-tier teams? In 2025 alone, Golden Four-Eyed shut down after 5 months, Black Beacon after 7 months — the graves are still fresh. Third wave: AI games are showing their true colors. MiHoYo's AI companion experiment shutting down in 2 months proves that the "AI + anime" gimmick can't save empty content. Players want characters they can live with day to day, not a talking instruction manual. Why did Where Winds Meet break 100 million while an AI companion dies in 2 months? The answer lies in content depth. Where Winds Meet digitally scanned over 1,200 cultural artifacts including the Night Revels of Han Xizai into the game, brought in four-time Hong Kong Film Awards Best Action Choreography winner Tong Wai as martial arts director, and overseas players have literally flown to Kaifeng just to visit the in-game locations — this is a dual fortress of "culture + gameplay." The AI companion game's problem is the exact opposite: technology is there, content is not. No matter how smart the chat model is, it can't match a well-written character with flesh and blood. Behind Where Winds Meet lies the domestically developed Messiah engine, cinematic motion capture, and over a hundred martial arts styles and intangible-cultural-heritage gameplay mechanics — every single one is a moat built through time. The AI companion game's only moat was the model itself, and models are open to anyone. The essence of the anime-style gaming track has never been a technology race — it's an emotional competition of characters and world-building. Whoever can make players "fall in love" survives. A risk perspective is also necessary. 100 million players doesn't equal 100 million payers: Where Winds Meet is free to download, and the true value of that milestone depends on long-term retention and monetization conversion; Endfield's $1.2 billion is impressive, but no one can guarantee Huaying's next title can replicate it. In 2024, the anime game market just went through a massive wave of shutdowns. Today's excitement could be the calm before another round of consolidation — or it could be that spring has truly arrived. It's too early to call either way. I'm honestly a bit wistful. MiHoYo is widely regarded as the ceiling of the anime game space, yet their AI companion game died in 2 months — if even the giants step on landmines, it shows that "AI + gaming" is still a false proposition at this stage. Meanwhile, Where Winds Meet just quietly did the hard work of building content and broke 100 million without much fanfare. The most equitable thing about the game industry is this: traffic can buy you trending topics, but it can't buy people's hearts. Question for you: Are you surprised that MiHoYo's AI game shut down in 2 months? Are you one of the 100 million players in Where Winds Meet? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.