Hot New Genshin Impact Clone Suffers Major Launch Day Woes

Wuthering Waves is ready to eat Genshin Impact’s lunch, if only it can overcome its login issues, performance problems, and overheating complaints. The free-to-play open-world action-RPG hit over 30 million pre-registered players, but is now scrambling to fix all of the annoyances those players are facing.

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“We have been paying close attention to feedback from players all over the globe, regarding any gameplay issues that may have arisen,” maker Kuro Games wrote on its website today. “We are committed to continuously fixing these issues through hotfixes.”

Wuthering Waves is an anime gacha game where players grind to unlock rare and powerful new characters. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where young warriors try to rebuild civilization while slaying evil monsters. The initial consensus is that it’s a lot like Genshin Impact, but with a darker tone and more of an emphasis on deeper combat. It’s a fun game outside of all the current problems.

It’s currently benefiting from being the fresh new thing, though some players are already talking like the May 23 launch on PC and mobile is more of a second beta than a true 1.0 release. “I think anyone who has been through this sub can verify that this game was NOT ready for release to day,” wrote one player in the currently most-upvoted thread on the subreddit. “So many visual bugs, the EN dub plain sucks, and other issues that once can see on this sub.”

A list of day-one issues on Kuro Games’ website summarizes the challenges: “lags, freezes, frame rate drops, device overheating, blurry graphics, crashes, or force quits.” That’s in addition to Unreal Engine 4 crashes and age authentication issues on mobile. A roundup of bugs on VG247 shows plenty of locked T-poses and graphical glitches ruining characters’ appearances.

Players have had gripes about the game itself as well. One ongoing issue is the quality of the localization. As PC Gamer reports, subtitles sometimes go off the edge of the screen, while certain dubbed voices sound really off. “Currently, our team is endeavoring to continuously rectify and optimize the localized texts to provide an enjoyable experience for Rovers everywhere,” Kuro games wrote in response to the feedback. “Fixes to some of the known issues with the current localized texts will be included in the patches to be released soon.”

The company is currently planning a number of additional fixes, including improving visual effects in combat to better communicate what’s going on and making the game easy to play with a controller. Perhaps most important for an RPG grindfest like Wuthering Waves, Kuro is working on a way to skip more of the game’s extremely dense exposition and long story moments.

“We have received your feedback regarding the Skip function including ‘not enough skippable scenes,’ ‘UI design of the Skip button not readable enough,’ and ‘the main quest storyline feeling lengthy,’” the company wrote. “We plan to optimize your experience by introducing support for skipping all types of scenes in storylines and reviewing functions for storyline scripts and cutscenes.”

Current players are going to get a Voucher of Reciprocal Tides for a chance to get a 5-star character, as well as 10 Lustrous Tides for additional character pulls, to make up for all the launch week troubles. And despite all of the issues many are still having a blast, between deciding on their favorite characters and discovering just how cool the combat can look. Watch out Geninshin Impact, the mirror-match might just getting started.