Wuthering Waves

Wuthering Waves is a free-to-play open world action role-playing game developed and published by Kuro Games. It was released for Android, iOS and Windows on May 22, 2024 followed by PlayStation 5 in January 2025.

Wuthering Waves is set in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world of Solaris-3 after a catastrophe called the Lament wiped out most of humanity and caused unknown beings and monsters, called Tacet Discords, to appear. Humanity adapted to the threat and over time rebuilt civilization. The story follows the amnesiac Rover, who has awakened from a deep slumber and sets out to explore this new world.

It was revealed on March 23, 2022, initially inspired by Death Stranding with the aim to create a post-apocalyptic world where players can experience the fusion of new and old civilizations. The game development also draws inspiration from various sources, including Punishing: Gray Raven for its combat mechanics, as well as the Pokémon games for its echo system. Wuthering Waves has been compared to other titles of the genre such as Genshin Impact, but aims to place greater emphasis on its combat system compared to its predecessors.

Gameplay

Wuthering Waves is set in an open world. The player controls the protagonist Rover, as well as recruited allies called Resonators, which are split into 4-star and 5-star rarities. The endgame content features modes where characters can be used in a series of combat challenges.

The game's combat system features Intro and Outro skills; Intro skills are triggered when the characters enter combat and Outro skills are triggered when the characters leave combat. Both abilities (skills) are triggered when the characters are switched.

The game's gacha system features banners known as Convenes, where Resonators and Weapons can be obtained. There are three types of Convenes: novice, event, and standard. A pity system guarantees that 5-star items are obtained within a set amount of pulls.

Characters may equip Echoes obtained from defeating enemies, completing quests or participating in events, granting them abilities which summon or transform characters into monsters briefly.

Development

Wuthering Waves was revealed on March 23, 2022 by Kuro Games. It was announced for iOS on March 25, 2024. Development happened at Kuro Games's recently opened facility in Hong Kong, instead of its main studio in Guangzhou.

The game underwent two closed beta tests, with the second concluding in March 2024. After the first closed beta test, the story content was largely reworked in response to player feedback that it felt "uncomfortable".

On March 29, 2024, it was announced that Wuthering Waves was to be released on iOS, Android, and PC via the Epic Games Store in late May. On May 2024, it was announced that Wuthering Waves will be available via the Mac App Store in the future. On March 21, 2025, it was announced that the game will be released via Steam on April 29, 2025.

The PlayStation 5 version was released on January 2, 2025, with version 2.0, and the Mac version was released on March 27, 2025.

Reception

Wuthering Waves had over 30 million pre-registered users from over 100 regions and initially launched to a mixed reception with some positive feedback. While some players pointed out some issues at the game's launch, others praised the game saying it had the "best gameplay" among gacha games. Within its first week, it became the most downloaded in 100 regions. Some players were able to access unreleased content by changing the system clock. Other bugs included animation errors, such as issues with character movement. Some players who attempted to launch the game from the Epic Games store were met with a screen that read "Fatal Error", with a guide later being published on how to fix the issue.

At the same time, critics said that the generous rewards in Lustrous Tides made up for these bugs. On May 23, 2024, Kuro Games issued an apology to players and promised that players would receive in-game rewards as compensation for the game's issues. When patch 1.0.19 was released on May 29, in an attempt to fix the game's bugs, players found that the patch had removed all music from the game, and guides were released on how to fix the bug. On the same day, a bug was found that caused the game's audio to become delayed or be removed altogether. Guides were later released on how to fix both bugs.

Despite the rocky launch, critics and the overall playerbase praised Wuthering Waves for its "refreshing" combat system, open world, and movement mechanics alongside its "forgiving" gacha system.