Wuthering Waves, a free online game, was released on May 22, 2024, by Kuro Games and is now available on Android, iOS, PlayStation 5, and Windows. It is an open-world, action RPG, rated 12+ due to mildly suggestive clothing on some female characters, along with mild violence and horror.
The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world called Solaris-3, after a catastrophe called the Lament has wiped out most of humanity and has created monsters known as Tacet Discords. The survivors of the catastrophe rebuild humanity.
The story follows Rover, the main character, who has amnesia. The player can pick either the female Rover (Jane Jackson) or the male Rover (Chase Brown), which can be changed later. The gender does not change the story, and the player can input their own name. The game takes inspiration from many others like it and is often compared to games such as Genshin Impact for its open-world style and mechanics. Recruited allies, called Resonators, can be earned through pulls, known as Convenes, to join the player on their adventure and be used in fights.
Wuthering Waves is a gacha game, meaning that the player can obtain characters by doing pulls, which are slightly randomized. The player has to pull for characters and weapons as well. It works on a pity system, which means a 5-star character or weapon is guaranteed every 80 pulls. The chances increase as the pulls get closer to 80. Four-star characters and weapons are guaranteed every 10 pulls.
Many things throughout the game can give the player Astrites, a form of currency in Wuthering Waves, including quests and exploration. 160 of these can be exchanged for Radiant Tides, Forging Tides, and Lustrous Tides. Radiant Tides can be used on the special limited character banners, Forging Tides can be used on the special limited weapon banners, and Lustrous Tides can be used on both the standard character banner and the standard weapon banner.
When the 80 pull threshold is reached, there are two things that can happen. There is a 50% chance to get the limited character and a 50% chance to get a different character. Either the 50/50 will be won and the game will grant the player the limited five-star resonator, or the 50/50 will be lost and the player will receive a standard five-star resonator. The standard resonators can be pulled from the standard banner at any time as well, but the limited resonators can only be pulled on their respective banners.
The combat is a very open-world style, where the player controls the character and their attacks. Each character has an element, which can react with other elements and cause weakness in certain enemies. The elements are aero (wind), electro (lightning), fusion (fire), glacio (ice), havoc (dark), and spectro (light).
There is also a large variety of weapons the characters can use, including pistols, swords, broadblades, and rectifiers.
The game is not complete, and Kuro Games is still updating the story. Since it is pretty new, playing the game at this point feels like growing as a player with the game. Some appreciate the experience, while others do not like it, preferring to binge games and play through the whole story at their own pace.
The game is very interesting, but the characters are very hard to build and ascend at an early level. The bosses are difficult and it is best to ascend (level up) characters before fighting them, but fighting them is necessary to ascend the characters. While it is fun and entertaining, Wuthering Waves receives a 3/5 because the story so far is a bit boring and building teams that do good damage is hard.
