Wuthering Waves is a new Genshin-style gacha game from developer Kuro Games and, after going semi-viral on social media and attracting a whole bunch of players at launch, crashed into a wall of technical issues and bugs. This wasn't your usual collection of minor launch snafus, rather, Wuthering Waves suffered everything from terrible performance to placeholder NPCs and visual glitches. Best oversight of all? Players were able to access content early in ultimate hacker style: setting their system clocks forward a few weeks.
It's been a big old mess which, given this is a live service game, becomes more of a problem the longer it drags on. Kuro Games has previously apologised to players and now is doing so again, with the publication of a new open letter that is the studio equivalent of wearing a hair shirt. To sum it up: they're really, really, really sorry.
The studio begins by talking about how "grateful" they are for the game's reception, then gets straight down to rending its own garments.
"We apologize for the deficiencies and issues present in Wuthering Waves, our first fully independently developed and globally published game at Kuro Games. We understand that this has affected your gaming experience, and we are working to improve it for those who love the game."
The letter is long, so I'll summarise the key contents, but it manages to "apologise" three times and "sincerely apologise" twice. The studio says it's focused on optimisations for the current 1.0 release, and acknowledges the "common concern" that Wuthering Waves is too grindy, on top of which players can't store Waveplates. It says it has longer-term changes in mind but, for now, it's going to increase yield rates generally and run a double yield event for Echo materials before reducing the Shell Credit costs in the 1.1 update.
Kuro says it already fixed an issue with the Echo recycling system short-changing players, but "due to the urgency of this issue, failed to issue an announcement" and the "negative experiences for our players" gets another apology. But this one comes with a gift, one million Shell Credit for all (which will be issued to accounts by 10 June).
It apologises for a localisation error, promising "five Forging Tides" as compensation, whatever they are. Players will also get 20 Crystal Solvents for some reason. Kuro also says it's heard players' complaints about the "Overdash club" event and will be redesigning the rules and rewards for future events based on this.
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It has also pushed forward the release of some content, which will arrive on June 6. Namely the companion story "Solitary Path", the challenge event "Alloy Smelt", and then this jumble of words that makes no sense: "the Featured Resonator Convene event 'When Thunder Pours' for Yinlin."
The developer has fixed an issue with bosses unexpectedly exiting combat and, among other control tweaks, has lowered the prerequisites for unlocking the custom keybinding feature (which doesn't seem like it should be locked in the first place, but hey-ho) and says it's going to work further on keybinding options.
Kuro Games ends by saying that, in addition to the apologies and sundry featured above, "we recognize that there are still many issues in the game that affect player experience", promising it'll keep players appraised of the fixes coming their way.
"Since Wuthering Waves' official global launch, we have been disheartened by our inability to provide a high-quality gaming experience to all Rovers," ends Kuro Games. "We understand that continuously releasing better versions and content is our goal and mission, and we will always strive to uphold them."
A studio saying sorry for launch issues is nothing new, but this is such a mea culpa you almost feel bad for Kuro. Then again, it is making a gacha game, so I'm sure they can mop up their tears with some crisp $100 bills. Wuthering Waves will stay in 1.0 until June 28, when after some server downtime version 1.1 will be released.
Rich Stanton
Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."
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