Rumour: Wuthering Waves has bad performance because its engine specialist was laid off before launch

From stuttering screens to high ping, loading issues, and clunky gameplay, Wuthering Waves experienced a not-so-ideal launch, with performance issues at the forefront of player concerns. While the developers have done an excellent job communicating updates with the player base and distributing generous compensation, one can only imagine what's really going on behind the scenes.

A Reddit post recently discussed a rumor about how Wuthering Waves' Unreal Engine Specialist, Jiff (王宏波), was allegedly laid off just two months before the game was released. The blog post written by Jiff and translated by the community, alluded to terrible working conditions and profit-forward practices. Another Reddit post translated a conversation that revealed a rumor concerning how Kuro Games had previously laid off 100 employees on probation (zero to six months in the company) without compensation, further highlighting the company's inability to nurture fresh talents to grow in the gaming industry.

In addition, Kuro Games bit into a compelling deal with Tencent—a multimedia conglomerate with massive influence over China's gaming industry. In 2023, they invested in Kuro Games at a 14.3% stake. While some netizens believe that it could have helped Kuro Games push Wuthering Waves into the global market, it must have done nothing to improve the seemingly terrible HR practices in the company (if the allegations against Kuro are to be believed).

Jiff's layoff came at the most uncanny time. Kuro Games had invested a lot into Wuthering Waves, which was expected to net the company plenty of profits. With end-of-year bonuses just over the horizon, some netizens allege that the big layoffs could have been made to reduce the company's profit-sharing expenses, though this remains a speculation.

It's not the first time Kuro Games has disregarded technical support for its games. Their debut title, Punishing: Gray Raven experienced a shaky launch as the technical developer was rumored to have left prior to release, which caused bugs that couldn't be fixed by anyone in the team—until he was rehired to salvage the game.

Regardless of the aforementioned rumors, Kuro Games has continued to pay close attention to Wuthering Waves, which has already seen some improvements from the launch day chaos.

We have contacted Kuro Games for comment on this story, and will update should we hear back.

Speaking of compensation, check out our guide on How to use Voucher of Reciprocal Tides in Wuthering Waves here on Pro Game Guides.