Huawei's Mate 90 Made Wuthering Waves 35% Faster — and Turned a Phone Launch Into a Game Show
The headline at Huawei's Mate 90 event wasn't a camera — it was a gacha game. Huawei used Wuthering Waves, Arena Breakout and Just Dance to sell "stable frame rates, AI upscaling and ray tracing" as flagship features. Behind the demo: 35,000+ HarmonyOS games, 1,000+ participating studios, and 90 million HarmonyOS devices. When a phone maker co-optimizes a Chinese open-world RPG, hardware and content are getting locked together.
The event: a phone launch that put games front and center
Huawei unveiled the Mate 90 series with HarmonyOS 7 on October 1, 2026. Games came up again and again: the chip segment used Wuthering Waves to demo a heavy-load scene, and Kuro Games' rendering pipeline lead Wang Xin took the stage to explain the joint tuning work.
The two numbers Huawei is selling
By Huawei's own account, the Mate 90 Pro Max runs the Kylin 9050 Pro, and its new Mali-class GPU scheduling pushes Wuthering Waves to 35% higher average frame rate and 30% better frame stability than the previous generation. Chinese outlets reported a 30-minute stress test staying close to 60 fps. Note the fine print: 35% is a relative gain over the last flagship, not an absolute frame rate — and it is a vendor-lab figure, not an independent benchmark.
AI upscaling: 720p in, 1080p out
Picture quality is the second pitch. Huawei and Kuro Games co-tuned the game to render at 720p and use AI upscaling to output 1080p, cutting jaggies while keeping the GPU load manageable. In effect, Huawei is trading AI compute for headroom in real frames.
It isn't only Wuthering Waves
Arena Breakout already supports second-generation ray tracing on some maps. Huawei says the Kylin 9050 Pro's ray-tracing hardware can render 55 million rays per second, and that every chip in the line supports 3DGS rendering acceleration, which the company says lifts 3D modelling frame rates by 28%. Wuthering Waves' HarmonyOS build has ray tracing live in the Deep Dive game room, with smart HDR rolling out by the end of the year.
The emotional layer: themes, cases, and "value for feelings"
Beyond specs, Huawei staged an emotional beat. Mate 90 owners can claim a free Wuthering Waves theme, where the lock screen, earbud pop-up, wallpaper and charging animation all match the selected character. A themed modular phone case with a printed back plate sells for 69 yuan. Half engineering, half sentiment — exactly what gacha players reward.
Three ecosystem numbers
As of the launch: HarmonyOS 6 and 7 devices passed 90 million; available apps and services exceed 450,000; and HarmonyOS games top 35,000 titles with more than 1,000 studios involved. For a heavy open-world game, the installed base decides how many new players it can reach.
Analysis: why phone makers are buying into "game performance"
Upgrade cycles are stretching, and camera gains are harder for average buyers to feel. "Can it hold 60 fps?" is visible and comparable — so flagship mobile games became the best performance reference.
A two-way lock-in
Games give hardware a feature you can feel; hardware gives games a performance badge. Huawei is not alone. At Apple's fall 2026 event, Arknights: Endfield was announced for a 2026 global launch — another gacha title used to showcase silicon. The phone that can hold the most top-tier games steady is the phone closest to a player's next upgrade.
The risks and the counter-argument
Worth applauding, not worth fully trusting.
Three things to discount
First, 35% is a vendor-lab number and a relative gain; real feel depends on thermals, background apps and network. Second, ray tracing and smart HDR are still limited to "some scenes now, more later, wider rollout by year-end." Third, most gacha core players are still on mid-range phones, so the flagship headroom only reaches a slice of the audience.
My take
I read this as a signal, not a performance party.
Why this is good news
When a phone maker co-tunes a Chinese open-world RPG, ships a themed case and gives away a matching theme, "game experience" has entered the top tier of flagship marketing. Whatever lands in a KPI gets optimized — and whatever gets optimized eventually reaches your thumbs. We'll keep tracking hands-on comparisons on GameHub.
FAQ
Q1: Does Wuthering Waves really run 35% faster on the Huawei Mate 90?
A: That is Huawei's lab comparison: the Mate 90 Pro Max (Kylin 9050 Pro) shows a 35% higher average frame rate and 30% better stability than the prior flagship in Wuthering Waves. It is a vendor figure, not a third-party benchmark.
Q2: How many games does HarmonyOS have now?
A: As of the October 1, 2026 launch, HarmonyOS lists more than 35,000 games with over 1,000 participating studios, and HarmonyOS devices passed 90 million.
Q3: When will ray tracing and smart HDR arrive in the HarmonyOS build of Wuthering Waves?
A: Ray tracing is already live in the Deep Dive game room, with more scenes planned; smart HDR is scheduled to roll out across the game by the end of 2026. Follow the full version log at gghubs.com.