How Wuthering Waves Is Shaping the Future of Anime Action RPGs

This article was created in collaboration with sponsor Kuro Games.

When Wuthering Waves launched in May 2024, it entered a crowded market of open-world anime action RPGs. By September 30, 2026, Kuro Games had released Version 3.7, “Prism’s Illusion, Heart’s Illumination,” bringing the Xuanfang arc to a close and introducing two Resonators, Hsin and Suoming. Along the way, the game established itself as a leading force in the genre.

Its appeal rests on four interconnected strengths: energetic combat, fluid exploration, evolving environments, and expressive characters. Each contributes to the experience on its own, but their relationship with one another—and with the story—is what makes Solaris-3 compelling.

From the original release through Version 3.7, those elements have continued to develop together, offering newcomers and longtime players plenty of reasons to explore.

Combat and Character Design: A Distinctive Style for Every Resonator

In Wuthering Waves, a Resonator’s weapon category tells only part of the story. Characters are classified as Sword, Broadblade, Pistols, Gauntlets, or Rectifier users, but their individual abilities give them identities that extend well beyond those labels.

Roccia uses Gauntlets, yet her fighting style is defined by Pero, a mysterious magic box that acts as both stage prop and combat partner. Her Intro Skill even calls on it by name: “Pero, Help.”

Aemeath is classified as a Sword user, but she can also enter a mech form that reflects her history as an Exostrider Synchronist. The mech has its own attack sequence, while Sync Strike: Armament Merge brings her two styles together.

Hsin is a Rectifier user who alternates between Answering Form and Illumining Form. Each has different attacks and action modules, making transformation an integral part of her rotation rather than a purely visual effect.

Easy to Learn, Rewarding to Master

The broader combat system gives those individual styles room to shine. Players dodge and counter enemy attacks, use Echo Skills, manage each Resonator’s Forte Circuit, and switch characters during combos. Once Concerto Energy is ready, a switch can trigger the departing Resonator’s Outro Skill and the arriving character’s Intro Skill, creating a coordinated exchange of damage, buffs, healing, or positioning.

The fundamentals are approachable, but mastering them takes practice. Experienced players can use “swap-canceling,” switching characters during eligible animations to shorten rotations or combine actions from multiple Resonators. Tougher encounters also reward close attention to enemy patterns, counter windows, and the decision to attack or evade. A team that feels straightforward in casual play can become considerably more demanding when optimized.

Clarity matters at that speed. Enemy wind-ups, distinctive Intro Skill animations, impact pauses, sound, and camera movement help players follow the action. Hsin’s two forms illustrate how spectacle and mechanics can work together: her transformation is visually dramatic, but it also changes the structure and rhythm of her rotation.

Personality in Motion

Combat animations also reveal who these characters are. Roccia’s flips and theatrical gestures reflect her role as First Mate of the Fool’s Troupe, a traveling group of performers in Rinascita’s carnival scene. Aemeath brings her love of music into battle through song, while her mech form recalls her past as an Exostrider Synchronist.

The strongest designs bring animation, resources, and rotations into alignment. As a result, players learn about a Resonator not only through dialogue and appearance, but also through the experience of controlling them.

Exploration and Environment: A World Worth Traveling Through

Moving around Solaris-3 is satisfying in its own right, leaving players free to appreciate the world around them. From the beginning, traversal included sprinting, wall-running, climbing, gliding, and the Grapple. Subsequent updates introduced new ways to travel:

• Version 2.0: Flight offered a faster, more flexible way to navigate Rinascita’s vertical spaces.
• Rinascita’s Gondolas: Transport Gondolas make Ragunna’s canals part of the travel network. In Version 2.1’s Old Man and the Sea fishing activity, the Rover can also steer the Gondola Rachel around the Riccioli Islands.
• Version 3.0: The Expedition Motorbike arrived as a natural fit for Lahai-Roi’s open terrain and long routes.
• Version 3.6: Sword-riding flight became available at specific quest locations in Xuanfang, giving the region its own distinctive aerial traversal.

These options make the journey more than a pause between objectives. Sweeping over rooftops and ridgelines can be enjoyable on its own—and offers a fresh perspective on the landscape below.

Movement and Map Design Go Hand in Hand

Traversal in Wuthering Waves feels closely connected to the spaces players explore. Rinascita’s canals, bridges, and rooftops complement Flight, helping the city feel like a connected environment rather than a collection of narrow streets.

Lahai-Roi’s wide-open landscapes are equally well suited to the motorbike. Roads link resource points, while racetracks, riding challenges, and the ability to collect materials on the move make the vehicle part of exploration rather than merely a shortcut between destinations.

Those choices influence how players see the world. A rooftop becomes a potential route, a distant ridge becomes an invitation, and a tall structure becomes something to circle as well as climb. The environment is no longer just a backdrop for objectives; it is a place players come to understand through movement.

Puzzles That Encourage Curiosity

Each region also offers its own approach to environmental puzzles. Lahai-Roi features Smartprint Cube challenges, Echo-form puzzles ask players to transform into an Echo, and ice-cube puzzles involve moving blocks to clear a path. Other activities draw on traversal, object manipulation, or local mechanics to lead players away from the main route.

Rewards differ, but chests, exploration milestones, and activities can provide Astrite and other progression materials. The puzzles also make curiosity worthwhile, encouraging players to investigate unusual sights and take the occasional detour.

Fluid traversal helps players reach new places; thoughtful environmental design gives them a reason to look more closely once they arrive.

When Combat, Character, and Story Work Together

Integrating narrative and gameplay takes more than placing a fight between cutscenes. Story, combat, level design, and animation need a shared understanding of what a character or chapter is about. When those disciplines align, dialogue, abilities, puzzles, and environments can reinforce the same ideas.

Kuro Games builds that connection around each character’s central concept. Cartethyia’s “three swords as one” appears in both her story and combat identity, while the sun-and-moon imagery associated with Augusta and Luno carries through to their battle presentation. Ideas can echo across quests and character abilities, allowing players to encounter them from different angles.

Version 2.2 offers an example. The Rover accompanies Cartethyia through the Inverted Tower before reaching Fleurdelys. Along the way, an objective asks players to place three swords in three locations across Avinoleum to lift the final seal, echoing Cartethyia’s central motif. A battle involving Cadanto reflects their guardian-knight bond, while the tower’s design gives physical form to the opposing aspects represented by Cartethyia and Fleurdelys.

Pacing is just as important. Main Quests cannot always demand the precision of endgame challenges without risking an interruption to an emotional scene. By focusing on interaction, feedback, and narrative expression, gameplay can support the story: abilities convey identity, objectives turn lore into action, and architecture gives relationships a tangible form.

A World That Keeps Growing

Wuthering Waves has built its identity through a succession of updates rather than a single defining release. Across 23 versions since launch, Kuro Games has delivered more than 100 hours of main-story content, over 200 square kilometers of open-world maps, 206 distinct enemy types, and 67 playable Resonators.

One notable milestone was the summer collaboration with Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It brought Lucy and Rebecca to Wuthering Waves, along with two Cyberpunk-themed areas—Night City and the Moon—and a Nightmare: Adam Smasher boss encounter. Its emotional conclusion prompted many fans to call it “Edgerunners Episode 11.”

CD Projekt Red associate game director Paweł Sasko described the reaction: “We have done a bunch of collabs in the past, small and huge, and I have never seen a response this insane from the community.”

Version 3.4, which featured the collaboration, also set a new concurrent-player peak for Wuthering Waves on Steam. Throughout 2026, the game repeatedly reached No. 1 on Steam’s Top Sellers charts in major markets, while Version 3.7 took the global top spot on its launch day.

The game also earned a Still Playing – Mobile nomination at the 2026 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as Best Ongoing Game and Popular Vote honors at the Thailand Game Awards, where Kuro Games was named Best Game Publisher. At the 17th Hollywood Music in Media Awards in 2026, it received three nominations: Song – Video Game (Console & PC), Song/Score – Mobile Video Game, and Live Concert for Visual Media.

With Version 3.8 approaching, Solaris-3 continues to evolve. For players curious about where the anime action RPG can go next, Kuro Games’ expanding world offers plenty to watch.

 

Source: Polygon