Wuthering Waves 2.0 preview: A play worthy of laurels

Kuro Games delivers vast improvements in all areas

Kuro Games

From picturesque coastal towns over crumbling ruins of an ancient civilization to an opulent city full of canals, bridges, and a monumental cathedral, the islands of Rinascita remind me of past vacations in Italy. The Mediterranean flair is enhanced by a more vibrant color palette – Jinzhou and its adjacent islands all look a little grey and muted in comparison. That’s not to say that the entirety of Rinascita is a vacation destination full of warm colors. Kuro Games gave the islands that will become available in Wuthering Waves 2.0, which I had the opportunity to explore over the past couple of days, a lot of great variety.

While much of Rinascita is inspired by Italian city-states from the Renaissance period – and not just when it comes to visuals, as you’ll see – there are other influences to be discovered. There is a giant maze evoking the myth of the Minotaur with a massive tree in the center bearing such glowing, golden leaves that I couldn’t help but be reminded of Elden Ring’s Erdtrees. You’ll find a region deliberately void of much color, covered by mysterious fog and home to a skeletal dragon. There is a lot of verticality with high plateaus and cliffs ordained by waterfalls. Old fortresses and modern towers add a human touch to the landscape.

Welcome to Ragunna. / Kuro Games

Rinascita has that inviting quality of motivating you to climb the next hill to see what lies beyond, to explore that cave entrance alongside the coast, and to delve into those ruins over there. The developers are providing a bunch of tools to help that exploration – or skip it in favor of getting a smoother story experience. That’s where one of Rinascita’s unique qualities as the Nation of Echoes comes into play. This nation has learned to essentially domesticate many Echoes and use them in daily life. You can use a seafaring Echo as a gondola to have a romantic trip through Ragunna’s canals – and I mean that: You can invite one of your characters to ride the boat as your passenger – or swim up waterfalls to reach new heights. An Echo-type called Wingray soars into the air once you grapple onto it, allowing you to quickly climb cliffs or towers. New mini-games you’ll find along the way are also powered by fresh Echo transformations.

Arise, ye Tarnish-- wait, different game. / Kuro Games

My personal favorite new exploration mechanic has to be flight, though. Jump from a high place – or let a Wingray throw you into the air – and you can use the flight gadget. It comes with its own stamina bar and you can seamlessly switch between it and your regular glider, allowing you to bridge significant distances with ease. Loath as I am to compare Wuthering Waves to Genshin Impact, the flight gadget here wipes the floor with Qucusaurs in terms of controls and utility.

I believe I can touch the sky. / Kuro Games

Rinascita is pretty spacious, absolutely beautiful, and accommodates both explorers and story players very cleverly. In a short chat with the developers, they told me that many improvements in regards to exploration specifically were based on community feedback – to cite the favorite meme of the gacha community in 2024: “Devs listened!” I guess it doesn’t quite have the same effect if there isn’t a content creator making the dumbest face you’ve ever seen right next to it.

Anyway, let’s talk about the story – and there’ll be some spoilers here, so please be aware of that.

That's one heck of a spooky scary skeleton. / Kuro Games

As I indicated earlier, Rinascita isn’t only inspired by Renaissance Italy in terms of visuals: Its main players are based – some more loosely than others – on historical counterparts. Most obvious of all is the nation’s religious organization, the Order. Its grand cathedral looms over Ragunna and its priests – their clothes fittingly inspired by the Spanish inquisition – have an almost omnipotent grip on public life thanks to the power of excommunication. The Order is corrupt to the bone, greedy for power and control, an obstacle to progress, and completely hypocritical – the mafia dressed in priest’s garb. Yes, it’s basically the Catholic Church.

Aside from the Order, we have two other powers of note – two noble families who are locked in an intense rivalry. The Fisalias pretend to be faithful to the Order to get its support in this power struggle, but secretly worship Rinascita’s Threnodian instead of its Sentinel. That’s like aligning with the Vatican only to praise Satan at home. Their enemies, the Montellis, have only come to prominence relatively recently – they are bankers, merchants, inventors. They are progressive. Naturally, the Order doesn’t exactly like them and Rover’s interests clearly align with that of the Montellis, so throughout the adventure we’re teaming up with them to attain our goal of talking with the Sentinel. The Fractsidus have their fingers in the pie as well, of course, and the main story of 2.0 is about helping the Montellis uncover a conspiracy threatening the Carnevale, an immensely important festival they are hosting. It’s basically an anime-version of The Medicis.

You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned any ridiculous sci-fi tech babble yet in connection with world-building – and that’s because the writers learned their lesson. There is still exposition, of course, but it’s much less convoluted, better dosed, than in 1.0. It’s a great improvement.

It helps that the Resonators introduced with 2.0 get much more time to breathe and have their own characterization than in the launch story, where they pretty much functioned solely as plot devices. If you remember, the first story arc contains this ‘Avengers, assemble!’ moment that falls hilariously flat, because we haven’t even met some of the people helping us out. This time, Kuro is more patient. We first meet Brant and Roccia from the Troupe of Fools, who seem like mere performers at first, but can quickly pick up hints about a more complicated past related to transgressions against the Order. There are also Zani, a reliable, loyal, and relatable employee of the Montellis, and Phoebe, a young member of the Order who must question her faith.

Rinascita's characters are all allowed a little more breathing room. / Kuro Games / GLHF

Finally, there is Carlotta Montelli, voiced by Jennifer English of Baldur’s Gate 3 fame – and it sure paid off for Kuro to get someone so high profile, because she did a fantastic job with the role. I’ll say that there is still a good deal of waifu-baiting with Carlotta: Her and Rover get quite flirty. But we get to play from Carlotta’s perspective during the main story as well as her companion quest, which helps shift the focus a little bit – unlike Shorekeeper and Camellya, whose personalities were essentially being reduced to simping for Rover during their own story quests, Carlotta gets her own arc and retains her agency.

Carlotta is the Montellis' Executor, which means that she makes any external or internal problems go away. Permanently. / Kuro Games

In terms of gameplay, Carlotta is a highlight as well. She’s the first 5-Star pistoleer and got some of that rich girl Rin Tohsaka crystal magic going on, which is a great aesthetic combo. Carlotta is dashing around enemies while firing her pistols and darting in for the occasional strike from the ground as well as above – Wuthering Waves has always been quite good at incorporating jump attacks into combat and both characters from 2.0 are great examples of that. 

Carlotta can whirl herself into the air while shooting, coming back down with an acrobatic kick to propel herself out of melee range again. Her Ultimate is a great piece of storytelling, tying into her companion quest, and allows her to fire some especially powerful shots, which end with a sort of second mini-Ultimate. She’s quite satisfying to play.

Carlotta is ruthless and not afraid to get her hands dirty, but she's still a rich girl enjoying rich girl things. / Kuro Games

Roccia fights with the help of Pero, an Echo she carries around in a big box. Pero can come out to create a little tornado, throwing around enemies and allowing Roccia to soar into the air, from where she can come down with powerful strike attacks – and not only once: Roccia can repeat this feat several times in succession, giving you this satisfying stomp attack like Kachina and her drill from Genshin Impact. I was positively surprised by Roccia both in terms of gameplay and personality – her stature is definitely misleading.

I think the quality of the voice work has gone up from where it was previously and I applaud the attempt to represent the real-life region Rinascita is inspired by – you’ll hear Italian and French accents somewhat frequently. Sometimes, the diversity can cause a bit of whiplash. I did not expect Ragunna’s best pizza baker to be so Scottish, for example. Not that there’s anything wrong with Scottish pizza bakers, mind you – it’s just unexpected to meet one in Venice.

Some great system updates are coming our way with 2.0 as well. Rewards from exploration have been reworked, for example. Instead of increasing a vague discovery percentage through opening treasure chests (which has become more dangerous anyway, as Rinascita houses a population of mimic-like Echoes) and so on, you get very clear mini-quests you can tackle, which will also tell you more about the region and its history. Combat with bosses (Rinascita comes with three additional of those, all pretty fun to challenge) runs on a rank system now with quick clear times awarding more loot. Rinascita also has plenty of collectibles and brand-new Echoes with fresh Sonata Effects, so there’s plenty to discover.

Kuro Games managed to do something remarkable with Wuthering Waves 2.0 – not only did it build on areas that were already strong, like its combat system and exploration mechanics, but the studio really invested into the aspects that were considered weaker to get them up to par. A vast improvement in all areas, Wuthering Waves 2.0 is a really enjoyable and fun ride.

Wuthering Waves 2.0 is coming to PC, iOS, Android, and PS5 on January 2, 2025.

This preview is based on a work-in-progress build of the update on PC provided by Kuro Games.