With the recent 2.6 update of Wuthering Waves, the game received many improvements and a whole batch of new content to go through. The first phase of the update brought only part of the prepared story content, but it still shines brightly. However, not everything goes smoothly, as Kuro Games still struggles with finding balance in all games aspects, but let’s address each side of the update separately.
With Wuthering Waves Version 2.6 release, we receive a brand-new location – Sanguis Plateaus, which further expands the Septimont region. Drawing a comparison to the previous patches, the new area is relatively big, but still falls within the common size for many previous updates. There are enough places to explore for grind lovers and not too many to overwhelm the casual player. However, being mostly a location filled with ruins, caves and mountains, the Plateaus don’t actually live to the name.
The exploration experience doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking and refreshing like Fabricatorium of the Deep. But the second part of 2.5 felt more like experimentation with mechanics and opinion gathering, while v2.6 is mostly focused on polished experience. Thus, Sanguis Plateaus can mainly offer the already familiar set of activities, with a few new fighting challenges. The developers certainly aim to create a comfortable exploration experience for everyone, and so far they are doing well with both level design, UI and mechanics.
What is really great about Sanguis Plateaus, however, is the visual design of the location and the atmosphere that Kuro Games managed to create there. Lately, visuals and graphics became the strongest part of the game, so it might be not so surprising that the new location looks great, but the place simply feels different. Perhaps the narrative, engraved into each stone and tied to the main quest deeply, does the trick, or music, but there is this hard-to-ignore looming threat of the Dark Tide. If I had to compare: in Version 1.X, we faced a threat of nearly similar magnitude. But now, looking back, it feels like child’s play and the affected area was just an empty, generic rock island.
The most depressive area of these lands is Augusta’s hometown, destroyed by the Dark Tide many years ago. Reminding of Pompeii tragedy, which likely was the inspiration for the place, the city is filled with the statues of the Tide victims. Their last lines and thoughts can still be heard as we pass through this natural mausoleum. However, the effect hits stronger on the contrast when we have the chance to see the past through the Sonoro sphere. There, the city is still bright and full of people, who only prepare to face the Tacet Discords.
The narrative team worked really hard on this update, and it shows off in many details and quests moments. The entire Hunt quest line keeps your attention from the start to the end, slowly unraveling the deeper layers of the events behind it. To avoid spoilers, I won’t delve into story details, but what we learned in Overture about Augusta, Iuno, and their plans seamlessly intertwines with the main narrative, drawing a larger, more connected picture of the entire Septimont story arc.
While Phrolova quest and Fabricatorium felt like a plug in the story and left me questioning the point of its existence, Version 2.6 narrative set everything on point. The motivations of the character, the story flow and pacing felt about right and not forced for the sake of hidden developer motives. Moreover, while uncovering details and truth about Augusta and Sanguis Plateaus, we again get a nice foreshadowing for the upcoming game versions. Not just for V2.6 Phase II, but also for the upcoming 2.7 game version.
Through the main quest of the v2.6 we can see the main characters developments, as the story uncovers different sides of both Augusta and Iuno. The Ephor of Septimont isn’t just an undefeated, powerful gladiator, but the woman with her own fears and problems. Stoic leader outside, she bears the weight of doubts and anxiety, chasing the goals beyond predicted face. For years, Augusta’s only confidante was Iuno, who sacrificed for Septimont and Ephor’s plans more than anyone could imagine. By Sun’s Scourge, By Moon’s Revelation quest name wasn’t chosen on a whim, and reflects the forces that move the fate of Septimont away from the cliff’s edge.
Meanwhile, Rover here once again plays the role of a supporter, despite all attempts of the other character to crown them with the Hero of Heroes title. They came here for their own goal, and becoming a savior wasn’t the part of the plan, and Rover stands by that decision, inspiring others to act, yet landing a hand when it’s necessary. Like it was with Lupa, the mighty Arbiter gives Augusta a chance to shine on her own, not wrapping her personality and story purely around Rover’s existence. Wuthering Waves Version 2.6 brings a solid visual and narrative experience, not to mention the great music all around the cutscenes and locations. But the tech side and some gameplay decisions are the point where the game began to struggle the most.
Firstly, the stunning visuals of the Sanguis Plateaus came with the price higher than that of the Septimont capital. The amount of vegetation and active objects there is huge, which brings certain difficulties for the systems to process through. Polished with the heavy VFX in some cutscenes and boss fights, the game can now stutter if the settings are not adjusted properly. And this is quite a strange thing to witness, since the developers continuously work on the optimization for PC.
The second problem is a long-lived one by now, and it shows no sign of disappearing in the last three versions or so. Since the Septimont release, some cutscenes stutter, freezing for brief seconds on the camera transition moments. This unpleasant nuisance didn’t exist in the pre-Septimont Rinascita updates, thus I can’t tie it to my system’s performance, as nothing at all changed since then. On top of that, characters now struggle with slippery animation effects; their feet slide unnaturally during certain turns or movements. It’s as if the character model exists separately from the ground, completely failing to interact with the surface. This one is mostly funny to observe, but at times it ruins the serious moments.
When it comes to the gameplay, Kuro Games certainly tried to go deeper into the interactive narrative, making the experience more immersive, but it feels a bit awkward in the end. During the main quest, the camera often fixes itself at the strange angle, taking the proper character controls from the player. Sometimes it happens when the character is still in a battle, while the trigger for the camera move sequence is already triggered, which is annoying.
Other gameplay features embedded into the narrative are the moments where Rover has to insert stones into the anchor obelisk, and the game offers the player to click, drag and smash the buttons. I understand why it was implemented and what purpose it serves, but the devs overdid with the settings. The process of inserting the stone is supposed to be hard, but in the end it requires enormously fast clicking to fill the scale, which either makes Rover look too weak or players too slow. It’s not impassable, and thankfully, it only required a handful of attempts. However, gameplay features like this should expand the experience, not make it feel tedious—even slightly.
The v2.6 update also brought many improvements to the game experience in the older regions, such as flight and material gathering. These changes are a nice adjustment, but useful mostly for the new players or those who dropped the exploration long ago for it being boring. However, it’s nice to know that Kuro Games still work hard on every aspect of the game, trying to make it better even for the older regions or old content.
The second half of Version 2.6 arrives later with Iuno’s story quest and a related special event. Given the unstable quality and impact of every second update in the past, there is reason to doubt this part will shine as brightly as the first half. But to find out, we’ll have to wait—and hope Iuno doesn’t lose the compelling momentum in character development she gained in the latest main quest.
