A month has passed since the release of the game version 3.0 of open world action RPG Wuthering Waves. As several times before, the content update was separated into two parts. And recently we finally received the last piece to gather the full picture of the Lahai-Roi introduction. The expectations for the new region were pretty high, which is understandable after the grand finale of the Rinascita arc. However, meeting these expectations turned out to be a difficult challenge for Kuro Games.
Honami’s City looping crisis served as a bridge between regions, introducing some details and minor lore of Lahai-Roi. Along with Chisa Rover solved one another crisis, and she became the thread line that tied our journey to the Startorch Academy. After many years spent in a time loop, she wants to return to her family, and this becomes another reason to open the way to Lahai-Roi.
The devs at Kuro Games set the theme of the new region as ‘Back to School’ and didn’t joke. From the first step through the portal, everything turns into a school rom-com. After a short, intriguing cutscene between realities, Rover becomes a complete anime protagonist. The first thing that happens to them: a student rushing to class runs them over. Not on her own, but with her bike—though for the mighty Arbiter, it’s no different from being knocked down by a girl with a piece of bread in her mouth. Then. Trying to earn forgiveness, she takes us to the Startorch Academy.
School life starts. Lynae drags the Rover around, showing the academy. Even when she seems to have more important business to do she still returns to take us to yet another place. From the medical ward to the secretary and all around the campus, she walks with the newbie like a guide. This type of introduction isn’t new, of course. For example, Zani was our guide in Ragunna city. However, soon the feeling that the entire quest isn’t about the region but about Lynae grows like a snow roll.
Skipping the details, the entire story is circling around Lynae so closely, that the more global problems become just background noise. Rover rushes to the incident site because she is there, which is fine. But then instead of actually looking for the reasons behind this crisis or talking to Mornye and authorities, they go to Lynae again.
The main drama of the quest isn’t the fact that the Academy is in danger, not that there is a voidworm and weird people are lurking around, but the fact that Lynae is about to be excluded. I know, it’s sad and unfair, she tried her best, but once you look at it from another angle it looks just strange. Knowing Rover for less than a day, she drops on them a sad lore about leading a miserable life, before stealing the identity and becoming a student. She loves the Academy and doesn’t want to leave it. The girl should discuss that with the principal, not a newbie who hardly even knows where the restroom in this huge building is.
Wait, I think there was Chise somewhere. After stepping into Lahai-Roi, Chisa can be found among the NPC, with few lines attached. And that’s it. There is no scene resolving her story, no quest tied to her parents, and she won’t show up again at all. Come to think of it, when the Academy is under the attack, she could be among NPC helping people into safety, or trying to find Rover to join them in the fight. But no. Everyone but Lynae have almost zero to none importance in the key scenes.
The same pattern appears in the second part of 3.0 version. The quest turns into some chores we run with Mornye, while the more global plot remains as random background events. Some people would argue that her story is important and drives the plot, but it’s a very questionable statement. Heliodic Six and the calculation they make must be more important, as well as the visions Rover sees. Mornye is cute, nice and all, but her struggling with calling Rover ‘senpai’ and character development belong to the character quest.
Story and narrative-vise Lahai-Roi shows off the growing tendency to make the ‘waifu’ agenda the main selling point for the characters. This started with Fishing with Phoebe, Iuno quest and so on. Some of these character-related questlines became the second part of the corresponding game version. However, they were more of secondary additions to the main quests, while in 3.0 Mornye and Lynae became the main focus.
Moreover, this happens not only with characters. In WuWa 3.0 Kuro Games introduced the motorbike feature, which replaced the flying. Rover gets the bike for free as an Academy student (Where to apply? I want one too.) and it becomes the main transport of the region. By main, I really mean main. What starts as just a tutorial introduction, turns into huge pieces of the main quest, which are tied to the bike. Half of the Lynae quest we spend on the ride, then again we go on the ride, and finally we fight the boss on the bike.
By the end of the first part of 3.0, it already felt like Kuro decided that the bike feature is so cool that the game design should push it everywhere. The entire location seems to be built with this mount in mind.
Traveling through Lahai-Roi turns into a highway simulator because the size and location design strongly imply that you must use the bike or waste too much time walking. Of course, the bike can be used to jump over cliffs, do random tricks and there is the race event. However, this is just too much of it.
We have Mavuika at home.
The motorbike system also fuels the ‘waifu’ agenda, as it offers the duet ride with the characters players chose. They would sit behind Rover, enjoying the sight and music, while riding into sunset. And once again this is introduced in the main quest first, with Mornye’s unique animation where she hugs Rover from behind.
The best example of how ridiculous the entire focus on the motorbike mechanics gets occurred in the finale of the second patch part quest. There, Rover and Mornye run together to fight some evil. The mighty Arbiter fights ahead and distracts the enemy, while Mornye does her thing, while suffering from overclocking. When she stops to respond, Rover rushes back, but there is a twist. They are now half a location away and need to ride the bike to get back. Ride over the road, field and even the worm, spending more time than they did to get away from the start point.
In other aspects than game design and narrative, Lahai-Roi feels extremely raw. Many locations look somehow empty, with huge space filled with emptiness. The Academy itself looks like it was built by giants and humans just adapted it a bit for the living. Maybe it can be compared with Septimont, which was a grand city, but Startorch Academy and structures around still appear like they have some scale issue.
The graphics and the entire design of the first locations doesn’t really impress like Ragunna city did at the start of 2.0. The main idea behind Lahai-Roi seems to be some kind of 80’s sci-fi, or how it was seen in the movies of that period. There are many items that look old, like VHS or retro-styled computers, but with a tint of modern aesthetics. In the end, the environment becomes some generic background with mixed vibes, that doesn’t switch on the need to explore.
Maybe part of the issue lies within the color scheme the developers chose for the Academy. The green, yellow and brown colors prevail on the campus and dorms alike, creating an effect of texture mixing. The light there is designed to create the effect of an old record, which is nice as a stand-alone feature, but in the end some locations are unpleasant to stay at. The game offers the lightning setting and filters to fix that, but that should be a choice, not a way to survive.
However, there are other parts of Lahai-Roi which are better designed. The tribes stand, the Heliodic Six area and some nature zones are great. But once again, the empty space between them gives away either lack of time or the desire to push the bike mechanics, which made a little trick on performance.
Optimization of the V3.0 version is unstable too. At the beginning of the patch, the exact same motorbike implementation bit Kuro into an unpleasant place. When the character rides at a faster speed than walking or running, the system needs to load and render the environment faster. But WuWa is still a mobile game. While even on the PC FPS received the significant drop, the mobile version could become unplayable. This problem likely serves as root cause for the empty space in the location design. However, closer to the second part of 3.0 Kuro managed to patch the issue out and if not completely then significantly enough to improve the performance.
With this mix of specific narrative, design and technical decisions, Lahai-Roi falls behind Rinascita. While the cutscenes are improving significantly, giving characters more animations and emotions, the other sides of the game can’t hold the mark. This region is great for those who love student life aesthetics and the girl looking at the MC with sparkling eyes as if they are the love of their lives. But if you expect some epic lore-driven story and diverse gameplay, you might probably feel disappointed. So far, 3.0 brought only chores like quests and activities, while selling the girls through the generic romance tropes.
