Wuthering Waves review: A would-be usurper

Being given the moniker of WoW-killer or Civ-killer has never been a good sign for a game, since they usually fall short of expectations – and it looks like Genshin Impact will cement itself in video game history as one of those defining titles surviving usurpation attempt after usurpation attempt.  After Tower of Fantasy quickly threw in the towel as a competitor for HoYoverse’s open-world RPG, Kuro Games’ Wuthering Waves became the next object of praise for the crowd that’s obsessed with “Genshin Impact-killers” – a crowd mostly curated by certain toxic online personalities who cause drama and division for their own monetary benefit.  Kuro itself isn’t wholly innocent, having played into the mood with an aggressive ad campaign that indirectly referenced a certain “classic open-world RPG” and its mechanics, promising to deliver a superior alternative. Naturally, that would have been fine if the game actually had been able to back up those big words, but it’s a rather bad look for something that feels more l