Wuthering Waves: is it the Real Genshin Killer?
Is it just a shameless copy or a game that can devour Genshin?
Genshin Impact has been leading the gacha game industry for several years. Started as an escapade during the early COVID pandemic, the game has attracted more than 60 million active players in a month. From hardcore gamers to casual gamers, Genshin Impact has successfully attracted a wide audience and created a strong community. To dethrone Genshin, there are several games already that want to act as a “Genshin Killer”, however as far as I know, none of them successfully do that.
And now, another “Genshin Killer” has just been released, but can it really kill Genshin? Who knows. Wuthering Waves (WuWa) is a new gacha game by Kurogame (The developer of Punishing: Gray Raven) that people say can dethrone Genshin. But… Is it tho? Well here is my premature review from playing around 10 hours in the game.
Gacha System
Since both are gacha games, this aspect is crucial. Both games have a pity system, ensuring you get a rare character after a certain number of pulls. In WuWa, the pity is 80 for both character and weapon banners. In Genshin, it’s 90 for the character banner and 80 for the weapon banner. WuWa’s rookie banner guarantees a rare character in 50 pulls, followed by a beginner’s selector banner with a pity of 80, where you can choose the character you want. This allows players to strategize their pulls effectively. Additionally, WuWa’s weapon banner is less predatory than Genshin’s. Genshin’s weapon banner features two rate-up weapons simultaneously, giving a 25% chance to get the desired 5-star weapon (50% if you didn’t get a rate-up weapon on the last 5-star pull). In WuWa, there is only one rate-up weapon, making the chances 50% (100% if you didn’t get the rate-up weapon on the last 5-star pull). In this aspect, WuWa wins.
Combat Mechanics
Since WuWa aims to dethrone Genshin, its combat mechanics are more advanced and rewarding than Genshin, if you have ever played Ghost of Tsushima, WuWa has similar combat mechanics. WuWa rewards you for playing with a good mechanical skill (perfect evade, parrying, and switching characters mid-combat). As far as I remember, in Genshin, they reward you with damage numbers and a good combination of elemental reactions (maybe there are more, but it has been a long time since the last time I played Genshin, so if there is additional information about this, it will be welcomed).
Exploration
In terms of exploration, as an open-world game, I think Genshin is more casual (in good terms). Genshin exploration is just relaxing, you don’t really need to think too much, and the puzzle variant is not that much. In WuWa, they are going with the extra steps, there are numerous amount of different puzzles and sometimes it overloading. What I do not like about Genshin exploration is that you need a specific character to make the exploration easier (such as Venti on release). In WuWa, there is no character like that, so you do not feel forced to pull characters for easier exploration. However since WuWa does not have that kind of unit, the exploration feels too slow. In the exploration aspect, I think WuWa has the upper hand for its non-discrimination toward people who do not have specific character for exploration.
Character
Personally speaking, I think that WuWa character is just on another level. Almost every character have unique attack animations, even 4-stars characters has unique attack animation. However, in character design, I think for a general audience, Genshin's character design is more acceptable for a wider audience in my opinion. In terms of character design, for me I personally choose WuWa, but if I’m in another person's shoes, I will choose Genshin instead since the character design is pretty friendly towards a wider audience.
Story
For the story, there is not much I can say since WuWa story is still in the early stage, but if I had to compare it with an early Genshin story, I think the early Genshin story is better, WuWa just throws everything at once, it is kinda hard to follow the story. Moreover, WuWa is getting dark pretty quickly, so it will be hard to swallow for the general audience. But, the best thing about WuWa is, that you can skip several parts of the story dialogue, it is a good feature, especially for people who just come back to the game with a new account.
Conclusion
As a player of both games, I think WuWa has great potential to attract Genshin audiences, with the rewarding combat mechanic and more generous gacha system, it offers what Genshin could not. However, the Genshin community is as strong as a mountain, Genshin has successfully created a strong fanbase and it will be a challenge for WuWa to crush that mountain.
