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To the surprise of absolutely no one, another big modern gacha game has, in the eyes of many players, fumbled its anniversary celebrations and responded almost immediately with conciliatory freebies. This time it's Kuro Games' open-world action RPG Wuthering Waves in the hotseat, passing out additional rewards just days after whipping the community into a frenzy with an update 2.3 livestream that left some folks feeling cold.
On the heels of the 2.3 reveal, Kuro took to Twitter to address mounting criticism and disappointment regarding the game's anniversary rewards, echoing verbiage from similar spats after the game's launch. Back then, it was bugs and performance; this time, it's rewards, attitude, and presentation.
Kuro also acknowledges that "Wuthering Waves' accomplishments over the past year would not have been possible without our Rovers, especially Rovers who've been with us on this journey from the very start," seemingly tipping its hat to the folks who stuck with the game despite serious technical issues that threatened to torpedo its launch.
Extending an olive branch, as well as the team's "gratitude and sincerest apologies," Kuro has spun up a Wuthering Waves login event handing out 10 Radiant Tide, 10 Forging Tide, and 10 Lustrous Tide, giving players some free rolls on the main three banners. Somewhere in Kuro Games' office is a line of glass cases embossed, "In case of riots, break glass," with free rolls inside and a few already shattered cases standing as reminders.
This emergency freebie hasn't landed perfectly, either. Players are still skewering Kuro for leaving the actual anniversary on the lighter side, with a focus on new or returning players and paid incentives rather than giveaways, while chucking out a login event like chum.
"This felt like them dropping the cake and giving us the strawberries from the fridge," the top comment on one red-hot Reddit post reads.
"The 'stay tuned' part is doing some heavy lifting here because if the 10/10/10 is all, that's a pretty feeble response," another player writes, clocking the "stay tuned for more updates" comment from Kuro.
"The problem of the banners is still exactly the same. The 30 pulls don't do anything to solve that really," says another reply, focusing on the anniversary rerun banners that, like the normal versions, don't actually guarantee your selected agent.
Why does this sort of anniversary drama happen with seemingly every game like this, including Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail? The easy answer is that gacha games are designed to stoke disappointment and players always want more, but I think there's more to it.
The post-Genshin wave of action gacha games has introduced many players to the inherently predatory and fun-second, money-first practices that have dominated some regional markets for years, and these new players seem less accepting of the genre's baggage.
Genshin also triggered a paradigm shift in how gachas are made and monetized, with many games now emulating developer Hoyoverse's style wholesale.
The expectation within the gacha space is that anniversary celebrations are the one time a year where games go hog-wild with oodles of free stuff, but Genshin and its ilk have consistently been more reserved with rewards.
Wuthering Waves has taken countless cues from Genshin already, but fans had hoped it might set a new trend in anniversary plans.
Instead, its anniversary blowback has been nearly beat-for-beat – if anything, the backlash has been intensified by lingering soreness from Wuthering Waves' post-launch comeback arc and conflicting player expectations.
If and how Kuro can fully appease everyone remains to be seen, but as someone who likes these games despite the gacha trappings, I keep coming back to an adage that's also served me well in Destiny 2: just give people more stuff.
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