Wuthering Waves interview: Kuro Games looks back at launch and ahead to the future

Months after launch, Wuthering Waves is still chugging along as a high-grossing gacha game, rivaling the likes of Genshin Impact with its upward trajectory. That said, developer Kuro Games’ first global launch was an uphill battle and required considerable work before it shipped.

We recently caught up with Kuro Games, to discuss the challenges the development team faced ahead of launch and its plans for the future of Wuthering Waves.
 

Story struggles

Ahead of release, Kuro Games shared a developer update on YouTube about what it’d been doing in the six months after the first Wuthering Waves Closed Beta Test. At the time, the team spoke with ACG content creators Rexlent and Sandfish about the changes the team made, revealing that they'd revamped 90% of the original story.

Kuro Games reiterated the need for those changes in our interview.

“After the test in April last year, we noticed that players provided a lot of feedback on IP-related content, including character design and storylines. This feedback was the basis for our decision to make significant adjustments to the story,” the team said. “Compared to the previous story, the new story weakens the apocalyptic atmosphere and focuses more on the protagonist, the Rover, making it easier for players to immerse themselves in the game.”

For context: In the developer update, Kuro Games said the team had been working on Wuthering Waves and its original story for two to three years. Kuro Games then rewrote the story (with all the complications that entailed) in the six months after that first closed beta test.

“One of the challenges for us in improving the story was that we had to completely remake a large amount of supporting performances, including voice acting and animations,” said the team. “This is a huge challenge for any team, but we managed to do it.”

Despite the limited timeline, Wuthering Waves featured a new story for its second Closed Beta Test. While Wuthering Waves still takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, the tensions aren’t as pronounced as they once were—though it is definitely more grim than Genshin Impact, where destruction seems like a distant nightmare.

The revamp was worth it, though. “We are very pleased to see more positive feedback from players regarding the adjusted storyline,” he continued.

To avoid spoilers, the studio didn’t say too much about where Wuthering Waves is headed or what Kuro Games has in mind. He did hint however that players can “look forward to a very grand world.”

Action-packed

Before Wuthering Waves, Kuro Games developed Punishing: Gray Raven, a similarly styled gacha RPG that debuted in China before moving to Japan, and then eventually to a global release. When asked about the choice to bring the action-oriented combat from Punishing: Gray Raven to Wuthering Waves, Kuro Games said it had more to do with his team’s strengths than strategic marketing.

“We have no reason not to incorporate the successful experiences from Punishing: Gray Raven into Wuthering Waves and bring players an exhilarating combat experience. A significant portion of the Wuthering Waves development team is composed of members from Punishing: Gray Raven,” he said. “So rather than saying 'We focus on action games with lots of combos and high difficulty,' it would be more accurate to say that we aim to leverage our strengths to bring players a deep and enjoyable combat system.”

In addition to basic attacks, skills, and ultimates, each character in Wuthering Waves has many moves like dodge counters and aerial combos that players can string together to maximize damage. While satisfying to pull off, it can be difficult to accomplish these high-level feats on crammed mobile screens (as opposed to PC and console). Kuro Games says the mobile interface is one of the features Kuro Games is continuously working on and improving in its updates.

“We have put considerable effort into optimization, such as the performance of multi-part skeletal actions, the performance of the targeting selection algorithm, and the strategy for updating special effects. Recently, players have also noticed these optimizations, which makes us very happy.”

Going global

After Punishing: Gray Raven, Kuro Games had plenty of experience creating action-packed games. Distributing them, not so much. Punishing: Gray Raven was only available on mobile app stores and via a standalone PC download, not platforms like the Epic Games Store.

With Wuthering Waves, Kuro Games aimed for a global launch—but that meant growing the team.

“From an investment perspective, Wuthering Waves is indeed the largest game Kuro has ever undertaken. In terms of the project's significance, many of the things we are doing are unprecedented in Kuro's history,” Kuro Games said. “To achieve this, we have built our own global distribution team and localization team, and we are continuously dedicated to providing a higher quality gaming experience for players worldwide.”

Growing the global distribution team helped Kuro Games market Wuthering Waves around the world, and the localization team meant they could translate text for target markets.

Punishing: Gray Raven and Wuthering Waves are both long-term projects Kuro hopes to support for the foreseeable future, though Kuro Games says they haven’t ruled out additional plans. Kuro Games says future Kuro projects will also be globally distributed—why not, given it’s proven a success with its biggest title yet?

Wuthering Waves was also Kuro's first time bringing a game to the PlayStation Store and Epic Games Store.

“Wuthering Waves is Kuro's first self-published global game, and choosing more distribution channels is an experiment in this process,” said Kuro Games. “By leveraging major store channels like the Epic Games Store, we can reach a broader range of players and respond to a wider range of player needs.”

Not just a copy

MiHoYo took a similar route when it launched its breakout hit, Genshin Impact. Wuthering Waves and Genshin Impact are both open-world gacha games with anime-inspired visuals and rich lore behind their worldbuilding and storytelling. They also share similar systems, like gathering specific leveling materials to strengthen characters (though this isn't exclusive to Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves by any means).

Even with strides to improve Wuthering Waves and separate it from competitors, fans can’t help but draw comparisons between the two.

When asked about Kuro’s thoughts on Genshin Impact, Kuro Games replied, “Genshin Impact is an excellent game. As a product in the same genre, it is natural for Wuthering Waves to be compared to Genshin Impact.”

That said, Kuro isn’t scared of the comparisons.

“Wuthering Waves has made a lot of efforts to differentiate itself, and we are confident that it can bring players a fresh gaming experience,” Kuro Games said, speaking for his team. “For example, one of the core gameplay features is the Echo system.”

The Echo system enables players to absorb the abilities of Tacet Discords—Wuthering Waves’ monsters—as they defeat them and then use those abilities in battle. Wuthering Waves encourages players to explore the corners of the map they haven’t seen yet, absorb new Echoes for a chance to get stronger gear, and fill out an encyclopedia of Echoes for rewards. It’s one of Wuthering Waves' standout features, and one the team will be leveraging in the future to keep content fresh.

“In the future, the Echo system will continue to be a key focus in game development and ongoing operations, and we will further provide players with a variety of Echoes,” said Kuro Games.

Wuthering Waves also continues to improve based on player feedback, including in its new 1.2 update where players were offered a free 5-star character. Kuro Games has historically highlighted its fanbase as one of its main motivations and inspirations to improve its games. Kuro Games echoes this sentiment, thanking Kuro's fans during our interview.

“Thank you very much to all the fans for their support of the game. We are well aware that the attitude of the players is the ultimate measure of whether a game is excellent, so we have always been very concerned and attentive to the feedback from the community. We look forward to Wuthering Waves fans continuing to stay active in the community,” he said.

“We welcome all players to provide suggestions for Wuthering Waves, and we will keep listening and continuously iterating on the game. We will continue to work hard to bring more joy to everyone.”

Wuthering Waves is free-to-play and available now on the Epic Games Store—but before you dive in, you might want to check out our starter guide, our guide to the game’s 17 Resonators, and our look at the game’s version 1.1 update.