It’s no secret, Genshin Impact carded. Released two years ago, it has shaken up the video game world somewhat with its open-world, free-to-play formula, with plenty to do and content added regularly. Admittedly, the principle is nothing revolutionary and it draws its inspiration from some big names, but it’s a bit like the first real gacha to be designed for solo play, and especially with such ambitions, not to mention the fact that it is available on PC and consoles in addition to mobile.
Unsurprisingly, with the incredible success it has had, it was expected that other projects would flourish and try to follow the trend. Proof of this is that we have had a lot of announcements in recent months. Tower of Fantasy is the first real example, as it has been available for a few weeks. But others will follow suit, notably Seven Deadly Sins or the promising Arknights: Endflied. Today, we are focusing on the potential first real competitor which risks giving a hard time to Genshin, Wuthering Waves. We tell you everything we know about it.
A Genshin-like with pedigree
Wuthering Waves is a new open-world action-RPG developed by Kuro Game. A detail that is important since it is a studio based in Hong Kong, which we know for the excellent Punishing: Gray Ravena mobile game released a few years ago.
Punishing Gray Raven, or PGR for short, is a title that has been very well received. Certainly, it is not an open world, so the developers will have to prove themselves on the construction of the world, but it has proven many qualities. The fights in particular, which are very dynamic and provide a very good feeling, as well as other very successful aspects, which leaves us with very good hope for this new project, which has even more ambition and which will logically benefit from the good things learned on PGR.
We come back to Wuthering Waves : In outline, it is very close to a Genshin Impact : we will have a large open world to theoretically explore in solo with activities to carry out everywhere, an experience system, fights, third-person gameplay, several playable characters, quests to carry out, a main story and side activities, etc.
We still know little about the story which seems very cryptic. We will be immersed in a world that has escaped destruction and will try to rebuild itself. We are told that the world bears the scar of this event and is no longer stable. Darker and perhaps more mature than a Tower of Fantasy or that a Genshin Impactthe universe has less color, and the landscapes we saw seemed much more devastated.
We will have the opportunity to embody a male or female character. But we were also able to see other characters that we can play, probably through summons. One of the faces that often comes up in communication is Yangyang, a swordswoman in a blue outfit. For the rest, we can see a rather hostile world with creatures that look quite large and above all threatening.
A dynamic exploration
For exploration we will have a large map to explore with several areas. The majority of the corners will be devastated but we could still see a city, quite large, with a little civilization that looks rather futuristic. We imagine that it will be one of the main hubs. Inside there are merchants, quest givers and activities to do. You can also choose the time of day and therefore advance the time, for example, to walk around at night.
There are therefore a lot of options for getting around and discovering the surroundings. You can run, sprint, jump, open chests, swim and climb the walls in two ways: either with classic climbing or by wall running, that is to say running on the walls. We also have a stamina bar and we can see that there is a double jump, a kind of grappling hook and a glider. Note that running on the walls will not only be used to climb in exploration and will also be useful in combat to perform diving attacks.
Fights that promise to be rhythmic
The fights precisely, let’s talk about it. The latter seem to be particularly dynamic, like what we had in Punishing Gray Raven. The clashes will be hand-to-hand or at a distance depending on the weapon and therefore the character you have. Everything seems very fluid, with the wall run to make a dive attack, but also the grappling hook to take a little height before making a dive attack. The grappling hook has a cooldown of about ten seconds and you can use it in exploration or in combat
We also have a perfect dodge system. If we dodge at the right time, we will have a symbol that appears that seems to slightly slow down time. We can do combos, on the ground or in the air, we have magic attacks, especially with frost, we have force fields, quick attacks, and we can also do invocations such as, for example, having the support of a golem for a few moments.
We will have several abilities per character with different cooldowns and an ultimate. The studio seems to like melee attacks a lot and especially, when it comes to blades like a sword, daggers or a big claymore. Some characters can also attack from a distance, and it is precisely at a distance that we find the most original gameplay.
This is the case of Verinel, which seems to use the elements. She seems to use roots to smack her opponents and can slide to charge the opponent. Chixiashe will attack with guns and bailian can control some kind of entity. You can then compose a team of three characters, and switch characters on the fly. Synergies will be important as there will be a similar system to skill resonance.
To sum up, each character will therefore have an ultimate, a special technique, an item to equip and an invocation. All will have a cooldown, and the ultimate will need to be recharged as well. Small particularity, each character will also have a special bar, located in the middle at the bottom of the screen. This is specific to each character according to their particularities, and if we don’t know exactly what it will be used for, it seems that this mechanism is different for each character; probably a power up.
We also have boss fights, which look pretty tough, and an item to equip: so far, we’ve mostly seen the famous grappling hook, already mentioned above, but we can also replace it with another ability . It is for example possible to scan the environment around you.
Free-to-play?
Who says gacha, also says invocations. For the moment, we have very little information on this part. There will be several characters, so we imagine that it will be a classic system where we make draws to have characters. Nothing is confirmed but it will undoubtedly be a free-to-play with all the clichés of the genre, so summons with in-game currency and paid premium currency, a battle pass etc. We speculate, but it wouldn’t be surprising at all. Casting side, we could see a good ten characters with mostly female faces but several male avatars have already been confirmed.
When will Wuthering Waves be released?
For the moment, Wuthering Waves has no release date. During the announcement, in May 2022, the developers said the game was still in an early stage of development. However, that did not prevent them from making a public appearance again in July with gameplay and then another at the start of the school year. There have already been technical tests, so although we do not have a period yet, the studio seems to be counting on a release for 2023.
Regarding the platforms, it is officially confirmed on mobiles, iOS and Android. Unofficially, we can also expect an arrival on PC since the technical tests were played on it. The game has also not confirmed officially its arrival in the West but in view of the ambitions and especially the fact that the communications (trailers dubbed in English, English Twitter page…), we have no doubts about a worldwide release. It remains to be seen whether this will be done simultaneously with the Asian version.