If you’ve finished Wuthering Waves’ first three main story arcs, you’ve almost certainly sat back after the final cutscene and asked yourself who was the real culprit in Wuthering Waves. The game’s writers intentionally leave breadcrumbs scattered across side quests, environmental notes, and throwaway NPC dialogue instead of spelling out the answer directly, which has led to months of heated debate across Discord servers, Reddit threads, and fan content spaces. I’ve replayed the entire main campaign three times in the last six months, cross-referenced every side quest that ties to the pre-Sundering era of Jinzhou, and talked to dozens of top lore contributors to piece together the most complete picture of the culprit’s identity we have right now.
The Calamity of Jinzhou: What We Know From Official Cutscenes
Before we dig into suspects, it’s important to lay out the canonical facts we have straight from Kuro Games’ official writing, so we can separate confirmed events from fan headcanon. The core disaster that sets the entire game’s plot in motion is the Sundering of the Luminara Spire, an event that released uncontrolled resonance energy across Jinzhou, killed thousands of civilians, and turned large swathes of the region into uninhabitable resonance-contaminated zones.
Official government records in the game blame the disaster on a rogue Resonator named Yanqing, who was arrested and executed publicly three weeks after the Sundering. But anyone who’s played even a handful of side quests will notice dozens of inconsistencies in that official narrative, from NPCs who say Yanqing was in a completely different region the day of the Sundering to notes that show the Spire was already showing signs of destabilization months before he was supposed to have tampered with it.
We have four confirmed, uncontradicted events that lead up to the Sundering, all pulled directly from in-game documents and cutscenes:
None of these events line up with the official story that Yanqing acted alone. That means the real culprit has been pulling strings from the shadows this entire time, and likely has enough power within the Jinzhou government to cover their tracks.
Clues That Point to Who Was the Real Culprit in Wuthering Waves
When you start connecting the dots between these confirmed events, three major clues emerge that narrow down the culprit’s identity significantly. The first is the existence of the hidden faction operating outside the Six Ministries that you encounter during the third act of the main story. This faction has access to pre-Sundering Spire technology that even the highest-ranking Six Ministries officials don’t know exists, and they’ve been operating in secret for decades before the Sundering ever happened.
The second clue is the lost research of the Old Jinzhou Scholars, which you can find fragments of in hidden chests across the northern part of the map. These research notes show that the Spire was never intended to be a power source for the city – it was a weapon, designed to siphon resonance energy from the core of the planet to use against foreign nations. The scholars working on the project tried to shut it down when they realized how dangerous it was, but they were stopped by a group of government officials who stood to profit massively from the weapon’s development.
The third clue is the line from the Wanderer in the version 1.2 post-credits cutscene, where he mentions that the person responsible for the Sundering is still “sitting in the highest seat of Jinzhou, pulling the strings of every official you’ve ever talked to.” That line rules out any low-ranking officials or rogue factions acting alone – the culprit is someone at the very top of the Jinzhou power structure, with enough influence to control the entire government’s narrative around the disaster.
Put these clues together, and the only possible culprit is the Grand Chancellor of the Six Ministries, the highest-ranking official in Jinzhou, who has been referenced dozens of times in dialogue but never shown on screen as of the latest version. He was the only person with the authority to approve the Spire’s secret weapon development, the power to make the lead scholars disappear, and the ability to frame Yanqing for the disaster to cover up his own mistakes.
Common Fan Theories That Miss the Mark
Of course, not every theory lines up with the official clues we have. One of the most common wrong theories is that the Wanderer himself is the culprit, because he has access to pre-Sundering technology and avoids working with the Six Ministries. But that theory falls apart when you remember that he’s spent the entire game helping you uncover evidence of the government’s cover-up, and he lost his entire family in the Sundering – there’s no logical reason he would cause a disaster that killed everyone he cared about.
Another common wrong theory is that the Resonators are collectively responsible for the Sundering, because their resonance energy destabilized the Spire. That theory is actively pushed by Six Ministries propaganda in the game, but it’s debunked by multiple pre-Sundering research notes that show the Spire’s core was already unstable long before Resonators ever started appearing in Jinzhou.
Parsing through all these lore fragments can get mentally draining after a few hours, especially when you’re going back through old side quests to cross-reference dialogue lines. Most lore fans I chat with take regular short breaks to reset their focus without stepping away from their desks entirely, and many pick up Jaiho Rummy for quick, low-stakes rounds that keep their mind occupied just enough to avoid burnout without derailing their train of thought. Once they’re refreshed, they can jump right back into picking apart plot holes and connecting overlooked clues.
The biggest mistake most fan theories make is taking the official government narrative at face value, even when the game constantly gives you reasons to distrust everything the Six Ministries say. The forged evidence pointing to the rogue Resonator is intentionally designed to trick casual players who don’t take the time to dig into side content, but it falls apart completely once you start looking for inconsistencies.
How Future Updates Will Confirm the Culprit's Identity
Kuro Games has already teased that the 1.4 update will focus heavily on the Grand Chancellor and the inner workings of the Six Ministries, so we’ll almost certainly get official confirmation of his role in the Sundering in the next few months. The devs have also mentioned in recent developer streams that they’ve been planting clues about the culprit’s identity since the game first launched, so none of the reveals will feel like they came out of nowhere.
If you want to prepare for the upcoming reveal, you can go back and replay the side quests that take place in the Six Ministries headquarters, where you’ll find dozens of throwaway lines from low-ranking officials that mention the Grand Chancellor’s obsession with the Luminara Spire and his hatred of the Old Jinzhou Scholars who tried to shut the project down. The post-credits cutscene from version 1.2 also has a small easter egg most players miss – the document the Wanderer is holding has the Grand Chancellor’s official seal on it, confirming he’s the person they’ve been investigating this entire time.
There’s still a few small gaps in the lore that we won’t get answers to until the update drops, like whether the Grand Chancellor intended for the Spire to explode, or if it was an accident that he covered up to hold onto his power. But even with those gaps, the evidence we have right now is overwhelming enough that most of the active lore community already agrees he’s the real culprit.
At the end of the day, the game’s writers have done an incredible job of building a layered, nuanced story that rewards players who take the time to dig into the side content instead of just rushing through the main campaign. If you’re still debating who was the real culprit in Wuthering Waves with your friend group, walking through the clues we’ve laid out here will give you more than enough evidence to back up the Grand Chancellor theory, and you’ll have plenty of time to dig for more hidden clues before the official reveal drops in the next update.