How Wuthering Waves May Dethrone Genshin Impact

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Moiz Banoori

At Tech4Gamers, he is recognized for his insightful features and opinion pieces, where he blends his passion for gaming with a keen understanding of technological trends. His work, marked by depth and accessibility, makes him a respected voice in the tech and gaming community.

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Wuthering Waves is finally set to be released globally on the 22nd of May. With barely a month left till it’s available, people are hyping it up to be the Genshin Impact killer. Is this just people hopping onto the hype train, similar to what was said about Legends of Neverland and Tower of Fantasy? Or is it finally time for Genshin to meet its end?

After a long year of teasing and beta testing, we’ve got enough to talk about in regards to how Wuthering Waves may dethrone Genshin Impact.

What Is Wuthering Waves?

Wuthering Waves is an open world RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world. The game doesn’t have to follow the lack of liberties that Genshin had, being meant for a more casual audience. As such, you can expect a lot more creativity from this title.

It’s a gacha with special attention giving to a fast-pace combat system filled with dashes, dodges, and flashy finishers. The mechanics you use to traverse the carefully crafted world are unlike what’s usually expected of an open world game as well.

Who Are Kuro Games?

Kuro Games only recently made a name for themselves with the release of a Punishing: Gray Raven in 2019. They’re a company based in China, and even with just one game before Wuthering Waves under their belt, they’re made themselves a solid fanbase. 

This is due to the careful consideration that goes into fine-tuning their gameplay mechanics. While PGR didn’t make waves with how popular it got like what Genshin was able to accomplish, the audience it did gather praised the game endlessly.

How Can Wuthering Waves Dethrone Genshin Impact?

Briefly mentioning Punishing: Gray Raven is important in order to talk about what makes Wuthering Waves so great. It has all the elements that made PGR such an immersive experience, and it adds onto that a rich open world story. For fans of Genshin or Hoyolab in general, it’s as if you took all the best elements of Honkai Impact 3 and Genshin and stirred them in together with a darker plot and more freedom.

Fast Paced Combat!

Kuro Games’s bread and butter. A combat system so fun it’s more reminiscent of a soulslike than something with a mobile port. Compared to Genshin Impact’s simpler combat system, aimed at a more casual audience, Wuthering Waves makes you grind your teeth trying to attempt sweaty combos and perfect parries.

The first important distinction from Genshin Impact is the dash mechanic. Whenever you dodge an incoming attack, the game slows down and lets you do a follow up attack. You can’t just spam the dash button to exploit immune frames like in Genshin.

The next feature the game adds is a parry mechanic. Doing so at the perfect staggers the enemy, allowing you to follow up with a combo. Speaking of combos, another feature that enhances your gameplay is the character switching. In Genshin, and even in the other more combat-centered like PGR and HI3, you don’t have full freedom over this. You can only switch your character when not interacting with anything in Genshin. You can do QTE’s in the latter two games, but only when specific conditions are met.

In Wuthering Waves, however, you have full freedom to switch between characters and make your own combos, juggling enemies up into the air and then launching yourself up as well, switching character mid-jump to plunge down and combo into another character’s Ultimate.

Traversal Mechanics

Another feature gamers look forward to are the travel mechanics. Open world games are usually tied to a smaller number of ways you can travel. Usually, you can only walk and run. In certain games, you may be able to climb terrain or ride vehicles. Genshin’s traversal mechanics have been subject to complaining by the fans since launch. Over time, Hoyoverse has improved on it, but it still feels awkward. Mountain climbing’s a chore, you get stuck trying to get on rooftops. In certain quests, you may have to play a walking simulator for extended periods of time before reaching your destination.

Wuthering Waves solves all of this and more by adding style. You can run up walls, do a back flip and chain that into a grapple. If you’re stuck on a ledge, simply jump up or do a flip. Not only do these mechanics make the more boring sections of the game enjoyable, but it also offers a way to express your creativity. Also, you can ride a bike, or become a turtle.

Easier Grinding

Anyone who’s played Genshin knows just how painful the grinding is. To deal with this, Wuthering Waves does away with the high randomness of getting a good set. It also adds a more immersive aspect to grinding, letting you absorb enemies and play as them temporarily in battle.

Response To User Feedback

The last thing that may just be the most important is how in contact Kuro Games is with their community. In Genshin and many other popular titles, fans are often disappointed because the wishes of the creators go against what the fans want. Kuro Games has repeatedly proven just how much they care for the community by changing significant parts of gameplay and the story to better appeal to their community. In CB2, they mentioned how they reworked 90% of the game’s story taking into account what the fans want.

Moiz Banoori

Moiz Banoori, with a decade of experience in gaming and tech journalism and a degree in journalism, is a notable figure in the industry. He has contributed to various esteemed platforms, showcasing his expertise in both reporting and opinion writing.