Since its release in May 2024, Wuthering Waves grew into a very popular title. Wuthering Waves had a lot of expectations to meet, and it needed to break the constant comparisons to Genshin Impact. Many people on social media were quick to call it a “killer” of sorts, but it’s better to say that Wuthering Waves carved out it’s own space, with Version 1.3 being one of the most anticipated updates yet.
Thanks to Kuro Games, Final Weapon recently had the opportunity to try out an early access version of Wuthering Waves Version 1.3, which is available right now. So what does Version 1.3 bring to the table, and what should you expect from it? We’ll have answers to these questions and more.
Note: This article contains images taken from a beta build of the game, and may not reflect the final version.
Wuthering Waves Version 1.3 Brings a New Area: The Black Shores
With the introduction of Act VIII of the Main Story, players are able to explore a brand-new area called the Black Shores Archipelago, which is located far from the main land of Huanglong. Up until now, the organization of the Black Shores has been mentioned time and again in the main story, but now, we get to explore their “headquarters”, so to speak.
As the “Archipelago” in its name suggests, the Black Shores are a group of several small islands, with a rather ephemeral aesthetic for the lack of a better word. One of the main quest lines that you’ll encounter involves assisting in removing the corruption from the Tethys System, and by doing so, you get to learn a lot about the island’s origins.
Furthermore, you’ll also encounter a series of puzzles, which are a bit unique in their own way, while still maintaining the identity of the game. My favorite puzzle, well, if you can even call it one, involves a quest called Cerulean Adrift the Shore, where you’ll do a challenge with the Aetherfins, spectral dolphin-like creatures, with the objective being to pass through as many of the rings as possible. There are also Portals across the Black Shores allowing you to quickly pass between each of its islands.
The New 5-Star Character: Shorekeeper
The star of the show in Version 1.3 has definitely got to be the new Resonator, Shorekeeper. The game describes her as a healer support unit, which immediately led me to comparing her to Verina, a healer that to this day, is constantly used by players in their team compositions.
Shorekeeper feels to me like a much better healer than Verina, especially with her Life Entwined skill, which protects a Resonator from taking a heavy blow by sacriificing half of her HP. It’s easy to compare the two, seeing as they’re both Spectral-type Resonators. Still, Verina’s fourth Resonance Chain has a small issue where it seems she’s focused more on boosting the Spectro-based damage of other characters, while Shorekeeper on the other hand, has passives that apply better to all kinds of characters, regardless of their element.
Don’t get me wrong. If you have Verina, I’m not saying that you should replace her with Shorekeeper, as she is still a very good healer to pack in your team, and given that you can easily obtain her in the standard banner, this also makes her also easily accessible to players.
Shorekeeper still has great potential, however. Whether you’d like Shorekeeper to replace your Verina is ultimately, up to your own player preference. Honestly, I like that we’re finally getting more options for healer characters, after many main and sub-DPS type characters.
Shorekeeper’s Unique Design
Shorekeeper’s design itself seems to fit the “fluttering butterfly” aspect, which matches the overall design of the Black Shores. In fact, one of her abilities has her dash as a butterfly until your Stamina runs out. Her gacha animation is also really cool to see, and I really enjoy that Kuro Games goes the extra mile to make you enjoy a nice, cinematic experience and voice line of the character. These cutscenes also look beautiful, especially on an ultrawide monitor like my own.
I feel this bears repeating, but even as the game gets updated, one thing that I feel will not be easily upset by is the game balance. Kuro Games has reiterated that they’ve got their ear on the ground when it comes to player feedback. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the meta tends to shift towards new characters, especially as the roster expands. Still, I don’t see them causing an upset that will make characters obsolete at a pace that players won’t be able to keep up, unlike some games I could mention.
New Companion Story: Encore
Alongside Act VIII of the main story, we have a brand-new companion story in Version 1.3, featuring Encore. This companion quest is insanely adorable, and all I’ll say that it only makes me wish we had ways to re-experience already cleared story quests, because the cutscenes are really cute and well made. Encore’s tale is very endearing.
The story cutscenes and companion quests are so well done that I yearn for a way to be able to replay these quests. Sure, you can sort of replay all of the dialogue through the Story guide, but it doesn’t have the same impact. I can commend the developers though, since they’ve been making sure that you can enjoy the story from point A to B, even if you skip certain segments.
While I’d hate to make this comparison, but having some sort of New Game Plus feature for story quests would be great here. It’s a feature more games should have, as it will allow you to re-experience those fond moments again, without having to create another account and start over from the beginning. I’ll take even a cutscene replay mode at this point.
Version 1.3’s New Area is a Joy to Explore
Version 1.3 of Wuthering Waves introduces a massive new area full of new puzzles and of course, lore. This is just the beginning, since many more updates are on the way. As the developers have stated in the special announcement program, they continue to listen to player feedback day in and day out, and I had a lot of fun exploring all of the locations.
I honestly can’t wait to see what do they have planned for future version updates, and especially Version 2.0, or for the game’s celebration on the first anniversary. Both of these events would be milestones that the developers will certainly mark with a major change to the game.
Wuthering Waves is out now for Android, iOS, and PC via Windows, and a PlayStation 5 version is coming soon.