Wuthering Waves – Version 2.0 PC Impressions

Wuthering Waves is a story-rich open-world action RPG developed by Kuro Games that recently received Version 2.0. It has also been the bearer of the ‘Genshin killer’ title since the day it was announced. The previous project of the studio, Punishing: Gray Raven, was relatively successful, but the team didn’t stop at this milestone, aiming for greater highs. For years now, the crown of gacha king has stayed in the hands of Hoyoverse, and it seems that repeating the success of Genshin Impact has become some kind of competition for the developers. Kuro Games accepted that challenge too.

Different projects before have opted to stick closer to the established formulas, yet attempt to be creative about the world and introduce unique characters at the same time to be set apart from the predecessors. For an experienced gacha player, it’s always easy to say what older game was used as a source of inspiration for a newer title;

Thus, after the first look at the Wuthering Waves, I was quite reluctant to start it. However, with the release of the 2.0 update, I decided to give it a try and see how it evolved between versions, having a fresh impression of both of them. And this journey was akin to the sound wave, with its peaks and falls.

At the release, Wuthering Waves (from now on WuWa) had many problems with optimizations and bugs, but in the current version, nearly all the old problems got fixed. There are still minor problems with performance, especially on mobile devices, but nothing like in the early days of the game. The PC version mostly runs smoothly, rarely getting stuck for a few minutes on the loading screen, and I have not experienced anything critical after dozens of hours of playing.

As soon as the intro cutscenes ended, the feeling of déjà vu washed over my mind and stayed there for a long time. If you have ever played other popular open-world gacha games, loading up WuWa for the first time might feel like coming back home after a renovation. One glance over the dialogue frame, UI layout, and icons is enough to understand what games served as a main inspiration for WuWa.

There are differences in the design of certain tabs and some newly added functions, but they are not significant enough to give the completely unique user experience. The party set up, crafting, and utilities usage follow the same familiar pattern, so it’s hard to get lost, and you can freely skip the tutorial. This was certainly made to lower the time for the average player to learn a new game from scratch, allowing them to jump straight to the story and world exploration. This approach is fairly common, and the developers of WuWa have chosen to follow this trend as well.

The basic gameplay isn’t something groundbreaking, either. Gathering, gliding, fighting—WuWa has this bare minimum that every game of such a genre should have nowadays. The set of items and valuable items is mostly the same as Genshin’s too, differing only in name and design, but the purpose and usage are pretty much the same.

But despite all the similarities, WuWa is more dynamic in exploration gameplay as well as in its combat. Many actions don’t need stamina at all, and the boring slow climbing is replaced with the wall running, which is actually fun to use.

The debut Version 1.0 of Wuthering Waves introduced the region inspired by Chinese motives—Jinzhou, which certainly had vibes similar to those of Liyue, yet managed to appear as something completely new regardless. Despite the landscape around the capital being fairly generic, the city itself looks pretty nice. Sadly, while the environment looks interesting, the first introduced characters are so generic and similar to each other that at first I thought that two of them were the main character’s long-lost sisters.

The first acts of chapter one unravel the plot really slowly. Some parts are overloaded with dialogues, notes and generic pointless quests. The NPCs try their best to explain every trivial matter in the form of a long essay, flooding us with numerous wordy dialogue lines. Moreover, it doesn’t end only with lore; the game struggles to follow the “show, don’t tell” principle in general.

The NPCs and the main character, Rover, tend to comment on almost every move and action during quests, even outside of dialogue sequences. Sometimes, they merely narrate what’s already happening on screen. There was a moment when a door opened before me, and the character proudly announced that it had opened and we could proceed. I couldn’t tell if the Rover was being intentionally ridiculous or if the developers thought I needed extra help understanding that an open door means I can walk through it. And it wasn’t a single occasion. It was fairly annoying, but thankfully this kind of writing didn’t carry over to the 1.1 update and beyond, which I deeply appreciate.

The changes between versions’ became obvious as soon as I reached the locations and content added within the 1.1 patch. Concentrating on the more local issue and lore, the next acts of the first chapter appeared more coherent and engaging than the mess shown in 1.0. The narrative became more balanced in both visuals and text, finally getting rid of unnecessary text flood. The gameplay gained new additions too, introducing time control puzzles, which became a nice addition to the old exploration routine, as well as challenges that require turning into Echo to solve them.

The game continued to evolve, adding new endgame and exploration content, and by version 1.3, it had achieved a much better pacing. However, it still struggled to slow down at the right moments. While the gameplay saw interesting additions with Portal-like mechanics —unfortunately limited to the Black Shores location— the story development took a nosedive again. Among the highlights of its peculiar storytelling were hilarious moments, such as an amnesiac character suddenly discussing cosmic physics and black holes in great detail. Beyond that, the storyline featured several contrived plot twists that felt a bit out of place, but the cinematics were beyond beautiful.

By version 1.3, the world seems to revolve entirely around Rover, to the point where no one could function without them. In earlier versions (1.0 – 1.2), characters were either intrigued by Rover or sought to gain something from them, but now Rover has essentially become the center of a harem. The two characters introduced in this version are completely tied to the protagonist, with their entire motivations and even personalities built almost exclusively around our hero.

While one of these characters has a more meaningful connection to the main plot and lore, making their growing feelings for Rover somewhat believable, the other feels poorly written and appears to exist solely for a specific kind of fanservice. This shift in focus detracts from the narrative depth, making the story feel less organic and more forced, existing for the banner sales.

When the release date for version 2.0 arrived, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the game anymore, though there was no turning back—after all, I had started playing because of the teaser for this very version.

The new region, Rinascita, drew inspiration from Italian culture and cities, particularly Venice and Florence, blended with Vatican-like religious motifs. With the Families holding high authority, cartoonish creatures roaming around, and marionettes dancing, Rinascita immediately brings to mind Honkai: Star Rail’s Penacony, sprinkled with a touch of Genshin Impact’s Fontaine. However, it carries its own unique flavor, brought to life in vibrant carnival colors.

The environment there looks absolutely stunning. Stepping into the Ragunna City, you immediately dive into the cozy Italian city, with the vibes of an approaching carnival filling the air. The atmosphere here is completely opposite to melancholic Black Shores or refrained Jinzhou. Outside the city, the landscape is just as colorful and lively, hiding old ruins and temples that wait to be explored. The character design took a step forward too, and they look less like copies of each other. Yet what stays unchanged is the Kuro’s love for white-haired characters.

As the region with a completely different culture and the monsters, Echoes, living side by side with humans, Rinascita introduces many new gameplay features, which feel quite refreshing. We can fly with the help of sky stingrays, sail on fish gondolas, use bathtubs as taxis in the city, and much more. The developers also experimented with different game modes, like first-person view quests or scenes with the rhythm game elements. But the major change happened in the world exploration part.

In Rinascita, major points of interest and chests are automatically marked on the map after opening it via a beacon. Chests are mostly placed in the special zone, which is getting indicated on the mini-map as soon as the character steps into it. This change is clearly designed with busy players in mind—those who work full-time and prefer not to spend their entire evening aimlessly hunting for a handful of chests.

The narrative component in Rinascita so far reached a local high of the whole available main story. With few insignificant flaws in the quest’s chain logics, the debut of chapter two looks really promising. The first several acts give a nice amount of the plot to understand the problems of the new region and the complicated politics behind the carnival scene, yet it stays unfinished with a soft cliffhanger. However, companion stories fall behind, but they are still on a good level compared to some older character quests.

With each major update, Wuthering Waves keeps improving in terms of content, features, and gameplay. From the 1.0 version, the game kept improving at each step it took to reach 2.0. Not everything is perfect yet; while some aspects of the game get better, others struggle to evolve.

However, the developers clearly learn from their own and competitors’ mistakes, trying to bring the Wuthering Waves to new highs. The only question stays: for how long can they sustain this enthusiasm and aim for quality over quantity? The answer to it lies in the new version updates to come.

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