An open-world RPG that I could play for months on release - Wuthering Waves Quick First Impressions
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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?
Play it, but skip the betas and wait for the full release. Wuthering Waves is a fantastic open-world action-RPG with a rich narrative and some of the best combat and character design I’ve seen in the genre. Despite the high praise, this early closed beta version of the game also suffers from a number of issues that need to be cleaned up before launch—from technical problems to poor pacing to a lack of challenge. Given the incredible potential of Wuthering Waves at its core, it would be silly not to revisit the game in the future, once it launches in full and addresses some of these issues.
TIME PLAYED
I played Wuthering Waves for eight hours. I spent four hours alone exploring the entire world and finding loot, and I managed to cover over half the map already. I’ve also reached Union level twelve and upgraded two characters to level forty already. I’ve defeated two Tacet Discord world bosses that were level forty and managed to pull two four-star characters from the gacha banner. In the main quest, I’m currently at Chapter 2 Act 2 after spending nearly two hours completing the first chapter.
WHAT’S AWESOME
• Combat and characters. Wuthering Waves does combat impressively well thanks to all the characters and their different play styles, as well as implementing complications like elemental effects and status buffs to freshen up gameplay. I enjoyed fighting the game’s monsters especially because they’re all so unique. Enemies like the Guardians are more tanky and explosive fighters, while the Herons take battles in quick, swift swoops through the air. I found combat really exhilarating and loved combining different character compositions to see if I could pull off crazy combos during fights.
• Exploration. I spent half my play time exploring the world of Wuthering Waves, and it’s been one hell of an adventure. The map is insanely huge and filled with many different puzzles and mysteries to uncover, not to mention all the loot. Whenever I thought I was done exploring, there’d be another chest to open or some cool-looking island in the distance that I was tempted to head over to. I really enjoyed the adventure and I can’t wait to explore some more.
• Cooking. I really liked that I could cook up meals in Wuthering Waves and bring them with me on adventures into the wilderness. I could make items that healed me or even provided status buffs that did some cool things like reduce stamina consumption or amplify healing effects which really came in handy during boss fights.
• Resonating Sound guides. There are little nodes throughout Wuthering Waves called Resonating Sounds which are basically comments left by other players. These comments usually have really insightful information which helped me get through puzzles and stay away from hidden monsters. It was also pretty wholesome to come across them, especially when the Resonating Sounds specifically warned me away from danger.
• Aesthetic. Wuthering Waves’s environment and character design look absolutely magnificent, albeit a bit gloomy. The music really helps define the game’s mood, especially since the closed beta lacks voice acting.
WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
• Storytelling. I really want to feel emotionally invested in Wuthering Waves’s story, but reading the dialogue between characters has bored me so far. There’s a serious dissonance between the speedy pacing of the game’s cutscenes and the overload of information that the dialogue in these cutscenes was trying to explain to me, and the effect is a plot that feels awkward. I wish the lore of Wuthering Waves wasn’t dumped onto me so quickly, so that I could really enjoy and understand it on a much deeper and emotional level.
• Pacing, especially for newcomers. Although I might have extensive experience playing open-world RPGs, I still struggled to understand the story and get the hang of the mechanics in Wuthering Waves. The game plopped me into a boss fight within five minutes of the tutorial and then made me sit through twenty minutes of dense dialogue that felt overwhelming to pay attention to. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to acclimate for players who are new to the genre.
• Translation. After around three hours into Wuthering Waves, I encountered a couple of translation issues during a mission where I was learning about commissions. It was a little annoying to experience this since I didn’t get to know what the character was saying and I had to flip through the game’s guidebook to understand how commissions work.
• Lack of challenge. A lot of the combat mechanics that Wuthering Waves explained to me early into the game don't really matter that much in the beginning. Even after ascending my characters and reaching a point where I was facing bosses and monsters from level twenty to forty, I never struggled to beat an enemy which was disappointing. I haven’t reached the endgame yet, so it might get way harder later on, but this lack of challenge so early into the game made fighting enemies and the entire aspect of leveling characters and weapons feel weightless.
• Gloom and doom. The environment in Wuthering Waves looks too gloomy and depressing sometimes. I would appreciate seeing more vibrancy and sunshine in the game to highlight the breathtaking world a little more, since the gloomy atmosphere dulls the colors a lot.
• Technical issues. I faced a lot of technical issues while playing Wuthering Waves, from jittery movement to delayed interface response. This is to be expected for a game that’s still in closed beta, but it’s also why I’d personally recommend waiting until the full release to jump into the game.
💬 Will you play Wuthering Waves or are you going to pass on it? Let me know down in the comments!
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