The Legend of Sword and Fairy 7, also known as Sword and Fairy 7 or Chinese Paladin 7, is a xianxia/shenmo-themed fantasy action-adventure role-playing video game developed by Softstar Entertainment (Beijing) and China Mobile Games & Entertainment Group (CMGE). First released in October 2021, it is the ninth installment in The Legend of Sword and Fairy video game series, preceded by The Legend of Sword and Fairy 6 (2015). The story is set about 100 years after the events of The Legend of Sword and Fairy 2, with numerous homages to all previous games and some of the characters from the second, third, fourth and fifth game even making cameo appearances.
The game is the first in the series to abandon the fabled turn-based gameplay, instead using a real-time 3D hack & slash gameplay based on Unreal Engine 4. It is primarily made for the PC platform and is available for digital distribution on Steam. An English/Japanese-localized version was released for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in 2022 under the name Sword and Fairy: Together Forever ().
Development On May 23, 2017, Yao Zhuangxian announced that the project was established as the successor of The Legend of Sword and Fairy 6. Public beta was released on February 2, 2021 for free. Some beta players were also invited to provide feedback.
Presale of boxed editions (Standard and Premium) started on July 28, both in Chinese Mainland and Taiwan.
On February 14, 2023, Softstar released the first DLC of the game named Dreamlike World (人间如梦), which is a sequel that completes the plot gap between the game's ending and its post-credit scene.
Gameplay Unlike the turn-based battle mechanics used by the previous games of the series, The Legend of Sword and Fairy 7 uses a 3D third-person in a semi-open world setting and a real-time hack and slash style of action gameplay with no pauses between exploration and combats. The game consists of multiple major locations, each being an open-world map with numerous sub-regions that the character can explore freely on foot, encountering and interacting with various NPCs, enemy mobs and treasure chests along the way. The player can also choose to "fly" and fast travel directly to another area (as the main protagonist has a bird fairy that typically serve as a mount) to save time, and flying is the only option to travel between major locations as there are no open-world maps between them. There is also an expandable mini-map that shows the locations of the main quest, side quests and various important facilities (such as retail shop/pharmacy, bladesmith, kitchen and viewing platform) on the map.
When encountering friendly NPCs, a dialogue mark will appear above their head with hints of the conversation content, and dubbed greetings and background conversations will play when the player gets nearby. Nearby hostile NPCs will have a target mark appear on them, allowing the player to prioritize and lock onto each individual enemy to initiate an attack at will. In combat, the player can alternate between light and heavy strikes to trigger different combos, quick time events or teamed synergistic attacks, use ranged special attacks (which cost magic points and require cooldowns), or charge up a powerful strike for maximum damage. When using a team of protagonists, the player can switch readily among team members, and the enemies and boss will often prioritize attacking the character the player is currently controlling. Each enemy defeat will grant experience points and spoil items to the characters, allowing level-ups and acquisition of new skills.
There are numerous mini-games in the game, mainly a card game called "Journey of Heaven and Earth" (天地游) and a platform game called "Leaf Fairy Jump" (叶灵纵), which allow the player to collect trading cards and unlock a hidden fairy servant, as well as a plot-related snowboarding obstacle course game, a stealth game and a bamboo pole dancing game. The game has a unique "Cooking Mode", which allows the player to use obtained recipes and ingredients to create special dishes with beverages (whenever there is a kitchen or stove nearby on the map) that can provide significant time-limited healing, power-ups and buffs for the entire team. There is also a "Photo Mode" that allows the player to aerially tour the map and capture screenshots from any viewing angle.
Plot
Xiu Wu, a deity warrior tasked to hunt down the fugitive leader of the celestial rebel group Heavenly Demons, infiltrates the Demon Realm but was detected and attacked by Garuda soldiers. Fighting off waves after waves of pursuers, Xiu Wu concludes the mission is a failure and decides to retreat but does not have enough spirit energy remaining to activate his magical Chunzi Sword and open a portal back to the Deity Realm. After managing to escape to the Yanbo Spring, one of Shennong's Nine Springs and a forbidden area to the demon tribes, he was intercepted by the demon lord Chonglou, who critically wounds and knocks him off a cliff towards the magma below. However, Chonglou decides not to really kill Xiu Wu and uses the dropped Chunzi Sword to open a portal that allowed him to fall through to the Human Realm.
Meanwhile, in the Human Realm, a young lady-warrior named Yue Qingshu manages to outrun Xiqu, a violent, gigantic bison-like supernatural beast that has threatened the locals for years. On the way back to Mingshu School, her own spiritual cultivation sect, Qingshu discovers a mysterious fruit among the woods and is mesmerized by its spiritual energy into making a light bite before stopping herself. She then sees a young boy being abducted by an eagle, decides to intervene and successfully saves the boy in an aerial pursuit using her fairy servant bird Qiaoling. The boy, Ziqiu, turns out to be a chosen "divine child" secretly kept under guard by the neighboring Tianshi School, a bitter rival of Mingshu School. Although Qingshu wants to return the boy and avoid trouble, she agrees to let the boy stay and take care of him for a few days. Later that night, a mysterious woman sneaks into Mingshu School and attempts to seize Ziqiu in his sleep, and a mysterious man appears out of nowhere to steal Qingshu's sword and fight off the woman in a superhuman duel. The fight causes a section of the garden wall to collapse and crush Qingshu's aging grandfather, but Ziqiu reveals a magical power that seemingly reverses time, repairing the wall and reviving the grandfather. Shocked and confused, Qingshu decides to interrogate the exhausted mysterious man the following morning but is distracted to rescue villagers under attack by suddenly appeared feral monsters. When the bison beast Xiqu also appears, Qingshu attempts to draw it away from the village, but crashes off her flight after being hit by falling boulders. Suddenly the mysterious man arrives to save her and singlehandedly slays the beast (reveal to be an escapee from the Heaven Prison) in a spectacular fight. Ziqiu also appears and transforms into the avatar of a deity minister named Aoxu, and the mysterious man reveals himself as the deity warrior Xiu Wu, who was previously reverted to his primordial form as a divine fruit after being injured. Because of Qingshu's bite the previous day, they are accidentally locked in a magical symbiosis, and Xiu Wu needs to stay near her to recover and will grow weaker if kept away.
Qingshu's grandfather convinces Xiu Wu to join Mingshu School as a disciple so he can legitimately stay close to Qingshu. The two soon have to rush over to Tianshi Sect, who are under attack by a trio of Heavenly Demons led by Kuiyu, the fugitive lady-deity that Xiu Wu was tasked to take down, who is revealed to be in possession of Xiu Wu's Chunzi Sword. After managing to repel the attack, Tianshi Sect's leader Mengzhang gives them a book recording various magical beasts and fairies that may be useful in eliminating the demons and vicious beast. They decided to travel to Changbai Mountains searching for a magic fairy and are joined by Qingshu's childhood friend Bai Moqing, a disciple of Xianxia Sect who is tasked by her master Yuxia Zhenren to investigate the vicious beasts, as well as Sang Yo, a young Miao physician-warrior who is in love with Moqing. The team then encounter a group of labourers forced by the local fanzhen military to work in an ice crystal mine. When infiltrating the military camp, they see a mysterious hooded man meeting with the military commander in secret and notice a strange tower formation being constructed near the camp. When staging a jailbreak to rescue the laborers, the team fight off a magically animated armor puppet defending the camp, and Moqing accidentally dropped her personal sachet, revealing her identity to the commander, who happens to be her older brother. Her brother subsequently tracks them to Xianxia Sect and forced Moqing, who ran away from home years ago after learnt of her family enslaving miners, to return home with him.
When visiting Tianshi Sect, Qingshu notices Mengzhang's thumb ring and recognizes him as the hooded man she witnessed meeting with the Moqing's brother. She grows suspicious but chose not to immediately tell Xiu Wu until she has enough evidence. When investigating arsonist disturbances around Mount Emei, the team defeat another vicious beast Hualiu, a fiery mare that can talk, and learn that the otherwise gentle beast unknowingly ended up in the Human Realm and has been somehow possessed with a rage that itself cannot control. After hearing about another vicious beast terrorizing the canals in Liaodong, the team travels to Lulong and defeat the beast Chiru, a dragon fish who also reveals that it doesn't remember escaping from the Heaven Prison and is possessed by an uncontrollable rage. For ridding the beast, they are hosted by the general-governor Bai Songhuan, who is Moqing's oldest brother. Although finding out they are actually responsible for the miners' escape, General Bai instead chooses to let Moqing leave with them after emissaries from Tianshi Sect arrive and ask for Xiu Wu. When the team go to meet the Tianshi Sect envoy outside the town, the camp is attacked by Kuiyu again. Both Kuiyu and Xiu Wu are poisoned during the fight by a hidden spell Aoxu put inside him, but Kuiyu still successfully seize Ziqiu and retreats.