Mission structure
A Whisper of Fall: Jinyiwei uses sandbox "box garden" levels (箱庭, hakoniwa) rather than a continuous open world. Director Liu Qiwei chose this structure to focus on "details and gameplay instead of making a huge map." Each mission is a large, self-contained environment with interconnected spaces, hidden routes, and multiple completion methods.
Box garden design
Each level is a dense, hand-crafted environment with vertical layering (ground, rooftops, interiors), multiple entry points, and hidden areas that reward exploration. The design prioritizes depth over breadth. A single mission area has enough content and branching to sustain multiple hours of play.
The Deng Yang mission
The demo mission illustrates the box garden philosophy. The player pursues Deng Yang, a renegade Thousand-Man Commander, while competing against a Southern Commandery elite squad also hunting him. Two broad approaches:
Speed-run (approximately 10 minutes) Skip all encounters, parkour directly to Deng Yang. The player arrives without equipment upgrades and fights a harder boss.
Methodical exploration Engage four Southern Commandery officers as sequential mini-bosses, each blocking a different route. Defeating them rewards fire-resistance equipment (directly countering Deng Yang's fire attacks), superior weapons, and recovery items.
An IGN China reviewer spent the full two-hour demo session exploring branches of this single mission without seeing all possible events and outcomes.
Mission types
Objectives vary between missions. Types described include theft, pursuit, assassination, and investigation. Each type encourages different combinations of the game's systems. A theft mission emphasizes stealth and traversal, while an assassination mission demands combat preparation and intelligence gathering.
Branching outcomes
Missions are not linear. The Deng Yang demo had five distinct ending variations. Combined with Heavenly Deduction, players can explore multiple branches within a single playthrough by rewinding to earlier nodes. Different choices yield different experience, items, and story consequences.
Rewards and trade-offs
Different approaches yield different rewards. There are no "correct" choices. A branch involving more combat grants more experience. A branch emphasizing investigation reveals story context that changes later events. The choices and endings system means decisions have consequences beyond immediate loot.