Waven Review Summary

Enjoyable & Addictive Gameplay: Players consistently praise the game for its enjoyable, addictive, and relaxing gameplay. It's highlighted as a great casual experience, perfect for passing time, and offers a chill yet engaging pace that appeals to a wide audience.

Deep & Engaging Combat System: The game's core combat system is frequently lauded for its strategic depth, engaging turn-based mechanics, and dynamic feel. Players appreciate the balance between simplicity and complexity, offering a thoughtful and constantly evolving challenge.

Strong Ankama Universe & Improvements: Players appreciate the game's connection to the Ankama universe, particularly its improvements over previous titles like Dofus and Wakfu. It successfully captures the essence of these beloved franchises while offering a fresh, streamlined experience.

Fair Free-to-Play Model: A significant positive is the game's true free-to-play model, with no pay-to-win elements or forced monetization. Players can progress fully and enjoy all content without spending money, with purchases limited to cosmetics.

Extensive Class & Build Variety: The game offers extensive character customization through a wide variety of classes, subclasses, and build options. This diversity encourages experimentation and provides significant replayability, allowing players to tailor their gameplay experience.

Repetitive Gameplay & Content Scarcity: Players consistently report that the game lacks sufficient content, especially in the endgame, leading to extreme repetitiveness and boredom. The grind is perceived as excessive for the limited depth and rewards, making progression feel unfulfilling.

Balance Issues & Unpopular Nerfs: The game suffers from significant balance issues, particularly in PvP, where certain classes dominate. Frequent and often unnecessary nerfs to characters and builds frustrate players, making the game feel unpolished and less strategic compared to previous titles like Dofus and Wakfu.

Persistent Login & Connection Issues: A major barrier to entry and continued play is the persistent login and connection issues. Players frequently report problems with email verification, account creation, and server disconnections, making the game difficult or impossible to access.

Excessive Monetization & Costly Cosmetics: Players are critical of the game's monetization strategy, citing expensive cosmetic items, a lack of free-to-play customization options, and the necessity of premium currency for basic features like character slots. This excessive monetization detracts from the overall enjoyment.

Limited Language Support & Marketing: The game lacks support for several major languages, notably Russian and Asian languages, limiting its potential audience. Additionally, poor marketing and region locks further hinder its reach and visibility.

Deep deck-building & customization: The core gameplay revolves around deep deck-building and character customization. Players can create diverse builds by combining spells, equipment, companions, and class-specific abilities, leading to rich strategic possibilities and synergies. This allows for varied playstyles and significant player expression.

Fair monetization, not P2W: The game features a free-to-play model with a battle pass and a cash shop. Monetization is primarily for cosmetics, with minimal 'pay-to-fast' elements that do not provide significant gameplay advantages. PvP is explicitly designed to be fair and not pay-to-win, with all essential elements unlocked for all players.

Easy to learn, hard to master: The game is easy to pick up for new players due to good tutorials and intuitive initial gameplay. However, it offers significant depth and complexity, requiring time and practice to master, especially in competitive modes. It's designed for casual play sessions but involves a grind for progression.

Engaging turn-based combat focus: The game is heavily focused on its turn-based combat system, which is described as well-organized, fair, and engaging. Battles are short, strategic, and designed to be the central gameplay loop, with various modes including PvE and PvP. The combat system is considered a strong point.

Extensive class & subclass variety: The game offers extensive character variety through its class and subclass system. There are 5 main classes, each with 5 subclasses, providing 25 unique archetypes. Each subclass has distinct passive effects, talents, and spells, allowing for diverse playstyles and strategic choices.

Mixed server stability reports: Player feedback on server stability and latency is mixed. While some users report significant lag and connection issues, others state that recent patches have resolved these problems, leading to a smooth experience.

Good multi-platform optimization: The game appears to be well-optimized across various platforms, including PC and mobile devices. Players report that it runs smoothly even on older hardware and tablets, indicating good performance.

Critical game-breaking bugs: Specific critical bugs have been reported, including game crashes at particular points (e.g., Book 1, Quest 7) and issues that can lock players out of the game, preventing further progress.

Linux compatibility issues: A user reported an inability to run the game on the Linux operating system, indicating potential compatibility issues for that platform.

Small game file size: One user commented on the game's small file size, comparing it to a floppy disk, which suggests it does not consume much storage space.

Highly Recommended Game: Many players highly recommend the game, especially to fans of turn-based tactical RPGs, deck-building, and the Ankama universe. They find it enjoyable, fun, and a good way to pass the time, often highlighting its free-to-play nature and lack of pay-to-win elements.

Cautious Recommendation: Some players offer a more cautious recommendation, suggesting that while the game is worth trying, it might not appeal to everyone, especially novices or those who dislike grinding. They advise researching the game or trying it with friends.

For Ankama Franchise Fans: The game's relationship to the Dofus/Wakfu franchise is a significant point of discussion. Some recommend it specifically to fans of these games, while others warn that it's not a direct replacement or might not appeal to all long-time fans.

Not Recommended Currently: Several players do not recommend the game in its current state due to various issues, such as server disconnections. They suggest waiting for these problems to be fixed before trying it.

Optimism for Future Development: Players express hope for future improvements and content additions, looking forward to the full release. There's a desire for the community to grow and for the developers to continue enhancing the game.

Free-to-play & Cross-Platform: The game is free-to-play and offers cross-platform compatibility between PC and mobile devices, allowing players to sync their progress across platforms. This accessibility makes it easy for a wide audience to try the game.

Flexible Play & Future Potential: Players appreciate the game's flexibility for short or long sessions and are generally optimistic about its future development. Many are excited to see how the game evolves and hope for continued content support.

Long Development & Early Access: The game has been in early access for over 1.5 years, with a long development history. Players acknowledge it's still a work in progress and prefer a delayed, polished release over a rushed one.

Part of Ankama Universe: The game is deeply integrated into the Ankama universe, sharing lore and connections with popular titles like Dofus and Wakfu. This appeals to fans of the developer's previous works.

Launcher & Download Issues: Some players experienced issues with the Steam version, including email verification problems, and found it necessary to download the game directly from the official Ankama launcher or mobile stores. There are mixed opinions on Ankama's launcher practices.