Relive a year of jianghu memories with the new Dama Qi chessboard and Jianghu Encounters modes

A full year has passed in the jianghu, and the winds have shifted more than once. Over these months, you’ve watched pear blossoms fall by the Clear River, lingered over music and dance at the Fan Tower, walked through snow in Liangzhou, and caught a glimpse of a hidden peak deep in the mountains. Each festival and turning of the season quietly stirs up a wave of longing, pulling your thoughts back toward the path you first set foot on. In memory, countless seemingly ordinary days resurface; in those nights when you “envy not even the immortals” within your dreams, old scenes suddenly return, and the emotions they bring flare up across your heart like scattered stars.

Just as those feelings begin to drift, someone suddenly invites you to a match on the chessboard of dreams. Everything your eyes fall upon and everything your mind can’t let go of is drawn into this game, piece by piece, thought by thought, until the board becomes your entire world.

In the anniversary update, the brand-new “Dama Qi” gameplay will officially arrive. Wanderers can enter the special event “Fated Encounters on the Road” and step right into the board in “Chess with Old Friends”, trying out this new mode for the very first time and tasting the thrill of its matches. You can also join “Jianghu Encounters on the Board” to gather fragments of the journey you’ve already walked; as the pieces advance and retreat, you’ll be literally retracing a full year of your road through the jianghu.

Facing Old Friends Across the Board

This dream chessboard feels both unreal and strangely familiar, a little like waking in the middle of a memory. As a wanderer, you can step into the board alone, or transform into pieces together with a few trusted companions and fight for victory as a team. The basic rules are inspired by the traditional “Dama Qi”: you roll dice to determine how many steps your piece advances, and the first side to reach the final square claims the win for that round. The simple rhythm of rolling, moving, overtaking, and rushing for the finish keeps the tension high from the very first throw.

If everything on the board were decided by luck alone, the game would soon feel shallow. To avoid that, this chessboard weaves in mystic arts and sect martial skills, giving every move a deeper layer of planning and adjustment. You’ll feel that each step is more than just a number—it’s a choice that can completely change the momentum of the game.

Before a match begins, wanderers can select one sect’s martial art to study in advance. Each sect brings its own unique chessboard skills and tactical flavor. For example, if you choose to practice the ways of the Ninefold Flow, you’ll be able to “request” useful items from other wanderers at key moments. If you specialize in the raging power of the Kuanglan style, you can gain extra steps and seize the chance to reach the goal far faster than your rivals.

Alongside martial arts, a variety of mystic technique cards are also available to collect. Wanderers can build card-based strategies around their preferred way of playing, piecing together synergies one card at a time. You might choose to charge straight into enemy lines and crush the strongest opponent head-on, or lean into buffs and support effects to quietly secure a safe passage to the end. All of these tactical possibilities are waiting for you to experience them directly on the board. When you come across a trading square, you can use [Chess Rarities] to buy and sell cards, reinforce your own side, and grab the upper hand before anyone else can react.

*Visuals are from a pre-release build; please refer to the in-game version for the final presentation.*

Within this special chessboard, where there are mystic techniques and martial skills, there are naturally familiar faces as well—both old friends and long-standing foes. When you land on certain key tiles, you may run into powerful enemies from the past and be forced to confront them once again. Defeating them will grant you valuable bonuses that can turn the tide instantly; losing, however, might slow your steps, weaken your position, or saddle you with troublesome debuffs.

Among all these twists, the most unforgettable part of the board is the old places you pass along the way. When your piece moves onto these special squares, pear blossoms drift through the air and bamboo leaves sway softly in the wind, as if the scenes you once knew have been brought back to life around you. The familiar scenery draws you straight back into the memories tied to those locations. Revisiting these places doesn’t just stir your emotions—it also adds fresh variables to the current match, making every revisit a moment where both your heart and your strategy have to adjust.

Jianghu Encounters on the Board: A Dreamlike Realm of Memories

On the main board, pressing forward to outplay your opponents leaves little time to truly savor those revisited scenes. You may catch a glimpse of an old courtyard or hear a distant melody, but the next dice roll is always urging you on. It’s only after you’ve collected enough memories that you can unlock the dedicated “Jianghu Encounters on the Board” mode, carefully piecing every scattered moment together. There, you’ll be able to return to those scenes at your own pace, stitching them into a complete tapestry of everything that happened over the past year in the jianghu.

In this memory-focused mode, you might find yourself back in a quiet bamboo cottage on a sunny afternoon, finally answering that one person’s lingering question for a second time. You might step once more into the Fan Tower, with the scent of peonies and the soft breeze through willow branches, and unexpectedly meet that familiar yet distant figure silhouetted behind a screen. You could stand again beneath the flags flying in the wind and sand outside Whitehead City, looking up at the person on the wall as the two of you recall your days in Chang’an.

On another night, by the clear light of the moon filtering through pine branches, you might dive to the bottom of Ink Lake, carrying an old keepsake from a departed friend, and reunite with the solitary drinker waiting there. The flowing river of time never pauses for anyone; moments slip by before you realize they’re gone. Yet in these encounters on the board, the road you’ve walked through the jianghu seems to unfold in reverse, as if the past could be revisited and gently rewritten.

Within this space, former chapters of your story may find new endings. Alternate paths appear where choices once felt final, and the questions you left behind might finally receive their answers. Everything is waiting for you to personally unlock each encounter, sit down with old companions in the echo of your memories, and pick up the unfinished tales of the jianghu that once defined your journey.

The path you take across the chessboard quietly points toward the vast road that still lies ahead. When you look back on a full year in the jianghu, it’s not only about old enemies and cherished comrades; it’s also about those narrow crossings where you had no choice but to fight. Those desperate battles against powerful foes—when you pushed yourself to the limit again and again—are the moments when you truly forged a bond with the sword in your hand.

Thanks to the support and trust of wanderers like you, the game has been successfully shortlisted for the 2025 Steam Awards “Sit Back and Relax”–style category “Better With Friends” equivalent, the “Even If You’re Clumsy, You’ll Still Love It” award. In this anniversary version, even more formidable opponents will appear on your road through the jianghu. We hope that when the time comes, these fresh challenges will bring you intense, rewarding battles and a deeper sense of what it means to walk the path of a true wanderer.

If you enjoyed this style of narrative-driven gameplay and event updates, you might also like exploring other title updates such as Genshin Impact 5.3 Update Overview: Durin's Debut and New Northern Story or the martial world anti-cheat actions in Where Winds Meet Fair Play Update: Dec 12-18 Anti-Cheat Actions & Ban List, which similarly capture the evolving journeys of players and their worlds.