Wuthering Waves fans figured out how to unlock characters early, but the exploit may be patched 

The launch of Genshin Impact‘s newest rival, Wuthering Waves, has been anything but smooth. Players quickly found themselves dealing with all manner of bugs, errors, and game crashes. So much so, that developer Kuro Games is offering free pulls on Wuthering Waves‘ gacha mechanic to apologise for it all. However, there’s been one issue that I think most players wouldn’t mind seeing stick around; one that’s allowed them to play as a new character before they officially launch.

Over on Reddit (as spotted by IGN), user PisangMinyakRebus shared several gameplay clips from Wuthering Waves originating from BiliBili, which showed people playing as five-star character Yinlin. This is despite the fact that Yinlin won’t be added to the game until June. According to PisangMinyakRebus, this exploit was very simple to do; all it required was players manually setting the time to June 15, which is during the period Yinlin’s banner is set to run.

From the sound of things, this exploit doesn’t mean you permanently unlock Yinlin. It just grants you access to a trial version that will be officially available from June 12 to July 3. However, it still gives you more time to spend playing as her than Kuro Games planned, and could theoretically be replicated with any other future additions. As such, Kuro Games will no doubt have this exploit patched out sooner rather than later. In fact, more recent comments on the Reddit thread say a patch has already arrived, though only in China, so it may still work in the Western release.

There’s something almost nostalgic about exploiting a game’s mechanics by messing with its in-game clock. It reminds me of the time travel exploit from the Animal Crossing games, which allowed players to replay seasonal events or catch out-of-season fish and bugs.

Some may consider such exploits a form of cheating but, in the case of Wuthering Waves, it’s a single-player game with no competitive features. Plus, as explained earlier, this exploit isn’t bypassing the gacha mechanic entirely; you’d probably still lose access to the character once the trial period ends. Regardless, it’s a fun and mostly harmless exploit while it lasts, though Kuro Games will no doubt make sure it never rears its head again in the future.