The latest Version 2.7: Dawn Breaks on Dark Tides of the Wuthering Waves brought the Rinascita story arc to its logical conclusion. Starting with the joy of Carnevale, the plot swiftly went to a darker direction, unraveling more serious themes and problems of this region.
As the game versions replaced one another, we met characters with different goals and origins, solving their personal problems and deciding the fate of the entire nation. However, everything is doomed to end, and our journey here came to the final point.
But was it a satisfying finale? Without further ado, I will say that it was quite messy, epic and plainly overdone at some key moments. There were some which were great and some that were entirely unnecessary.
The finale became just as uneven as the entire region experience, wrapped in the stunning visuals. But why? Let’s try to break it down without too many spoilers.
The story has a slow and intriguing beginning, as Rover returns to the Ragunna city. The place isn’t as joyful as they remember, and the citizens seem to be depressed and scared of an unknown threat.
However, the people of Rinascita still try to fight these gloomy days, and Brant and his team take the major role in this little rebellion. There comes the first breaking point, as the simple decision to watch the show throws Rover into another dimension. This place meets Rover with the line “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” in the reference to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Here they see reflections of their comrades and the finale that “fate” prepared for them.
This place is a reflection of the real world, which strangely reminded me of the Chaos we visited in Iuno’s quest line. And it’s not a coincidence. Involuntary, Rover sees the local world of the dead, which seems to have many names yet serves only one purpose. The intrigue grows as we see TD’s acting as more sentient beings, bowing, talking and begging. We saw a similar behavior in Iuno’s quest, however, here they act a bit different. At the first sight, it seems that they bow to Galbrena, who comes to throw Rover back to reality in one single shot.
The confusion and uncertainty drive the first part of the story quest, as Rover can’t tie together the occurring events. The nightmares torture people. The sky cries the dark tears. The Divine Maiden is murdered by the mysterious woman with Dark Tide powers. And then the outbreak of Tacet Discords happens all over the Rinascita.
The set-up and the entire vibe of the beginning of the quest remind of Genshin Impact’s battle for Natlan or Honkai: Star Rail’s fall of Okhema City. Everyone fights for survival, while different factions join their forces to help Rinascita’s people. Finally, we see how the entire region comes together, even if we never witnessed the true essence of their relationships.
The Montelli family throws away riches from the vault to give people shelter. Order of the Deep sends their acolytes to spread the light of the Imperator and hold back the foes. Fisalia fights the curse running in their blood, while holding the last frontier.
Meanwhile, the people of Septimont hold their own ground, with no reinforcement to come. Here, Kuro games managed to convey the tragedy of the looming apocalypse and the people’s struggle all across the affected lands.
Amidst this chaos, we have Galbrena, who guides Rover through the main plot line as the poet Virgil led Dante through Hell. And this comparison is not a random one. The ghost of Divine Comedy always lurks around, which perfectly fits for the Italy based region. However, the narrative swiftly falls into chaos of epic and overly pretentious events.
The plot tries to give closure to every story line and justice to each Rinascina character possible. The entire theme of the second part of the regional story is to fight against fate, and the authors are trying to show as many outcomes as possible.
One of such moments is Avidius’ who was created as a spare character for Christoforo’s play, but grew to become a real human with his own beliefs. Another is the theme of Fenrico and the Order of the Deep. However, as in its own update it felt like a filler, here it gives an even more forced vibe. The authors needed Rover to get the lantern with the Imperator’s light for both plot and gameplay purposes, but the execution feels entirely out of place.
At some point of the plot, a random blind guy appears and brings this lantern. Yes, it’s Qiuyuan and his story is yet to be revealed, but in the vacuum of this exact story quest it felt like a plug for the story hole.
In general, if you try to slow down from the epic flow of the final story quest and think over the events – there is a high possibility that you will see how much the plot relies on deus ex machina. Many scenes hang on the cliff of cringe, barely managing not to fall down.
People of Septimont are about to lose? Here comes the entire Rinascita gang because Black Shores sent their troops to Ragunna city. And who cares that Black Shores already had an agreement with Augusta and could come directly to Septimont, we need the Rinascita characters on the screen.
Everyone fell into Dark Tide? Worry not, they managed to drink Cantarella’s magical potion just a moment before. Each time when danger and drama hit the peak for the epic plot moment, these events get resolved with magic and power of friendship. And actually it fits WuWa in a certain way, since male Rover is known to look like a generic shōnen anime protagonist.
However, Galbrena manages to beat Rover’s epic existence in too many ways. I really like her design, the origins of the characters and the fact that she plays an important role, but she too swiftly turns into an epic Mary Sue within a blink. She can do everything: absorb discords, heal herself, fly, shoot and be a perfect actor. I’m pretty sure she is also a great cook, plays several musical instruments, and much more. She is a child of Virgil from Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, which was reborn in the world of Wuthering Waves.
And the Devil May Cry references are entwined into many scenes where Galbrena is present. Starting from some lines in her teaser and ending with the quest battles with dynamic music and literally slasher-like gameplay from the named game.
Galbrena can fight the leader of Fractsidus as equal and even consume the Threnodian power better than Abby. Somehow, it gives the feeling that she could succeed on her own, the entire gang just made it easier and faster with less damage to the region.
But fine, the plot and the characters are always the theme for the arguing, as the different people have different perceptions.
Meanwhile, the technical state of the game is a more precise topic with too little room for arguing. And here 2.7 manages to make a step back on the path of improvement.
On the release day, the performance was terrible, with the cut scenes refusing to start and remaining on black screen for much longer than necessary. The chattering of the animation in cutscenes didn’t go away either, only becoming worse. Things became better only after turning off the new global filter option, which seemed to have some issues even on mid to high systems before the upcoming patches.
Another thing that has terrible realization is the new cut scenes mode. I’m not sure how exactly they work, but at first glance it seems to be pre-rendered animations used as a substitute for the real time rendering. While the animations there are more natural and fluent than a stiff, but while the FPS counter shows great numbers, the video on the screen is clearly played on 30 at best.
The lip sync is nearly nonexistent there, and chattering of the animation is obvious. However, the post disappointing about these new cutscenes is the timing on the dialogues options. It gives really little time but more than that on PC it simply didn’t work with the press of 123 keys which hints suggested to use. Though, these choices don’t really affect anything, and Rover will just either say the first line or just remain silent.
Another new game mode was introduced with the Imperator’s message left to Rover. This interactive story seems to continue the idea of interludes with the different mechanics to proceed through it. Along with the stylized 2D graphics, these little actions create a nice experience of reading a book with pictures that can move.
And the final game mode the 2.7 brought back is the FPV adventure. Once, we already had such experience, but in a less dynamic set-up.
Here we take the role of Galbrena and basically do the parkour through the Journeying Paradise. To be entirely honest, I’m not even sure why this was added to the game. It doesn’t really bring much to the narrative, nor does it last long enough to be a separate special quest. It seems to be another case of testing the mechanics, probably for the upcoming Cyberpunk collaboration. So far it looks fairly raw and unnecessary, but it still exists.
So, the journey through Rinascita is over, with the promise to return there for another Carnevale. The final chapter might create a mixed opinion, but it’s still a decent closure to the long story of the entire region. We met old friends and new, saved the people and defeated fate, with the bitter aftermath of playing right into Fractsidus’ plans. This was a great journey with its ups and down and players will certainly miss their favorite characters to be the form Ragunna or Septimont.
The greatest risk of this finale is that it sets a precedent, making all future stories vulnerable to comparison. For Kuro, the challenge is twofold: they must not only avoid falling short of Rinascita’s quality but also resist the urge to artificially exceed it through inflated scale. As we bid farewell to this chapter and look toward Lahai-Roi, the studio must walk a delicate line between ambition and overindulgence.
