Wuthering Waves celebrates first anniversary with $317.3m on mobile and Los Angeles celebration

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Kuro Games’ open-world RPG Wuthering Waves generated $317.3 million over its first year on mobile, according to AppMagic estimates.

The game’s total year-one earnings are likely even higher when including revenue outside Google Play and the App Store, on PC and on console.

After launching on May 23rd, 2024, the cross-platform title shot to success with its first $100m on mobile achieved in less than two months. From there, it rode the wave to its first quarter-billion shortly after Version 2.0’s release.

Now, Wuthering Waves has surpassed $300m on mobile alone and celebrated its first anniversary with an in-person event at The Majestic, Los Angeles.

Riding the wave

Wuthering Waves generated $2.7m on launch day on mobile and peaked two weeks later at $5.5m on June 6th, 2024. As is typical for a mobile gacha, following early highs player spending has entered a routine of peaks and troughs, largely influenced by new content updates and new characters to spend for as soon as they release.

Being Wuthering Waves’ first full month, June 2024 remains its most lucrative month on mobile at $62.2m in gross player spending. Spending fell for three consecutive months thereafter, down to $10.7m in September before turning around in October and November.

Notably, 2025 has seen a marked improvement to monthly earnings – outside of Wuthering Waves’ launch high. The game’s worst month this year, February, still saw $17.4m in player spending, up from last year’s low. Monthly spending has only increased since then, up to $31.5m on mobile this May, the third-best month of its lifetime so far.

Wuthering Waves’ most lucrative single day of 2025 thus far was April 29th, when players spent $4.4m on mobile. This coincided with day one of Golden Week in Japan and the Version 2.3 update, which introduced new gauntlets-user Zani, new story content and an event quest.

On the anniversary day itself, May 23rd, the gacha game generated $2.5m on mobile.

Characters, cosplays and an anniversary cake

Wuthering Waves’ first anniversary saw fans gather to celebrate in many locales around the world – namely Japan, South Korea, mainland China, Taiwan and the US.

In the latter, an official event dedicated part of the evening to those who came in cosplay – fans taking to the stage to show off their outfits inspired by the RPG. A vast number of characters were represented in the showcase, including Jinhsi, Changli, Xiangli Yao, Shorekeeper, Camellya, Carlotta, Roccia, Brant and many more.

After the cosplay portion of the event there was a live musical performance based on Wuthering Waves’ OST, revisiting moments and scenes from the game’s first year.

The event went on with a buffet, Tactical Hologram challenge, speedrun challenge and finally, a photograph in front of a one-year anniversary cake.

Players’ investment in the characters, world and narrative Kuro Games constructed speaks to the value of a testing phase, as the game’s first closed beta led to the majority of the story being rewritten.

That effort paying off helped earn Kuro Games a place in our Top 50 Mobile Game Makers list in 2024.

The game’s next update, Version 2.4, is expected to release on June 12th, introducing the new region Septimont, new characters and new challenges.