Black Myth: Wukong is too mediocre for all this drama

Black Myth: Wukong is too mediocre for all this drama

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Black Myth: Wukong is a hit: breaking all-time peak player count records on Steam, beating out Counter-Strike and Palworld to become the second most-played game on the platform, and selling more than 10 million copies across all platforms. In the few days after its release, it has become one of the most talked-about games of the summer — but for all the wrong reasons.

Discussion of Wukong on social media has been dominated by people arguing about what constitutes a valid criticism of a piece of art. Reviewers of the game have become the target of harassment, and the general tenor of conversation has reached a level of toxicity that would likely make any potentially curious player run screaming for the safety of yonder Fortnite hills — myself included.

Despite that trepidation, I wanted to know what, if anything, about Black Myth: Wukong as a game was worth all the digital ink being spilled on its behalf. And while no game is worth any kind of harassment, a few hours with Wukong have left me wondering: this is it? Wukong is a gorgeous game, but its simplistic combat drags down the experience into something that’s beautiful to look at but aggressively just OK to play.

Image: Game Science

Black Myth: Wukong is a retelling of the classical Chinese fantasy novel Journey to the West. Its opening moments feature a flashy combination of cinematics and gameplay that has Sun Wukong, the monkey king, facing off against a godlike foe while a pantheon of Chinese gods and their celestial armies observe menacingly in the distance. It goes incredibly hard and tickled all my wuxia / Chinese historical drama-loving bits. However, Sun Wukong is defeated, and the game starts in earnest with the player being given control of a new character tasked with finding the relics that will awaken the monkey king from his centuries-long slumber.

Wukong has some elements of a soulslike game. There are various user interface elements that remind me of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Death causes enemies to respawn and resets player progress back to checkpoints called shrines, but it does not cause the player to lose leveling-up currency. The Destined One (DO), as he’s called in the game, can string together combos of light and heavy attacks. There’s a dodge system that rewards you with essentially more powerful attacks when executing perfect dodges. You also have magic at your disposal that lets you freeze enemies for a short amount of time or transform into creatures that have their own combat capabilities.

I respect that the developers built moments into the game specifically to appreciate that beauty

I’ve been playing on the Steam Deck, which probably isn’t the best device for the game. (Wukong isn’t labeled as Steam Deck certified, but that hasn’t stopped it from being the most-played game on the platform over the last week.) In some spots, it chugged ferociously, even at the lowest settings. Nevertheless, the game’s environments are wonderful to behold, and I respect that the developers built moments into the game specifically to appreciate that beauty. Early on, I found a spot where DO can meditate, and the camera pulled back to show off an utterly gorgeous vista of a mountainous forest.

Despite its bombastic opening, the next few hours of the game did not come close to those initial heights — and combat is to blame. Enemies were trivially simple, and beyond one aberration of an encounter very early in the game, the bosses were, too.

After suffering ass-beating after ass-beating in Shadow of the Erdtree, I didn’t mind Wukong’s button-mashy combat style, but after a while, it got boring. The game’s narrative offset my boredom enough to keep me going. There’s a bestiary with highly descriptive entries that read like fairytales. Every time I defeated a new enemy, I’d immediately pause to read the new entry and see the enemy’s portrait that looked like a traditional woodblock painting.

It’d be nice if the conversation about the game ended here, but unfortunately, Black Myth: Wukong has launched with a lot of baggage. In 2020, the game was introduced in the West with a slick, 13-minute trailer highlighting graphics and action that were impressive for a game still early in development. However, in November of last year, IGN released a report on Game Science, the studio making Wukong, that featured sexist comments from the game’s developers made on Chinese social media. When asked about those comments in recent interviews with other outlets, Game Science’s response has been “no comment.”

Then, in the run-up to the game’s launch earlier this week, screenshots of a document from Game Science began circulating on social media featuring instructions on what influencers were and were not allowed to discuss. The prohibited topics included covid-19, politics, the Chinese game industry, fetishization, “feminist propaganda,” and “other content that instigates negative discourse.”

Prerelease embargoes are common, though they’re usually limited to things like special character appearances, boss fights, plot twists, or anything the developers want to keep as a surprise for players. But it’s odd for a developer to dictate how a reviewer can talk about a game.

Some of the interesting monster designs from Black Myth: Wukong. Image: Game Science

This strange move has made Wukong a cause celebre within certain video game communities on social media. There is a small but loud contingent of gamers who applaud Game Science’s refusal to speak on the sexist comments made by its employees, seeing the game’s success as a repudiation of what they call the “woke” video game industry and its concerted efforts to include the opinions and perspectives of marginalized identities. So much so that reviewers who don’t enthusiastically praise the game, or bring up its developers’ history of making sexist comments, have received Gamergate-levels of harassment.

In Screen Rant’s review, the author’s byline was removed “for their safety.” The IGN reporter who wrote the initial report on Game Science was also subject to harassment, including since-deleted fabricated quotes saying they were “devastated” Wukong had amassed so many players. This level of violent response feels really silly for a game that’s already sold millions and is sitting comfortably at an 81 on Metacritic.

Curiosity is a powerful enticement, and I’m glad mine led me to try Black Myth: Wukong rather than dismissing it out of hand for the unfortunate discourse. As I’ve said earlier, I love Chinese historical dramas, consuming them voraciously wherever I can get them. They have a tendency to run long — sometimes upwards of 100 episodes — and, unfortunately, not all of them can be bangers.

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Black Myth: Wukong surprised me. Going in, I knew not to expect a souls-like, despite it seemingly sharing many of the genre’s hallmarks. The game’s Chinese developer, Game Science, has been adamant that it’s not a souls-like, preferring to define it more generically as an action-RPG. This is at least partially accurate, as Black Myth: Wukong is definitely not a souls-like. What I wasn’t expecting was for it to be essentially a lengthy boss rush. It’s not uncommon to go from one boss fight into another and then another, and it’s in these elaborate battles where Black Myth: Wukong shines. The moments in between, however, aren’t quite as strong, sometimes devolving into aimless tedium. But its satisfying combat and unique variety of boss fights mostly manages to overcome these flaws.

Black Myth: Wukong’s story is based on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. Originally published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty, the epic saga has proven to be incredibly long-lasting and influential since its release, inspiring everything from Ninja Theory’s Enslaved: Odyssey to the West to Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball manga. Black Myth: Wukong’s take on the enduring tale is set sometime after the original story while still retaining many of its characters. Names like Zhu Bajie, Kang Jinlong, and the Bull Demon King will be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with Journey to the West, even if certain characters’ allegiances sometimes differ from the source material.

You play as a mute monkey, known as the Destined One, who shares more than a few similarities with the titular Sun Wukong–a legendary simian commonly known as the Monkey King. Sun Wukong is a prominent character in Journey to the West, so your unexpected presence is one of the game’s central mysteries. Are you the Monkey King reincarnated, or perhaps one of his clones breaking off on your own quest? The answer isn’t the most surprising, but it makes for a thrilling conclusion to the adventure.

The rest of the game’s story didn’t quite resonate with me, however. It’s clear that Game Science had the freedom to deviate from the source material, but I still felt lost when trying to follow every facet of Black Myth: Wukong’s narrative. It helps that each of the game’s six chapters revolves around a relatively self-contained tale, dealing with universal human emotions such as love, hate, and greed. Yet it still feels like a story best experienced by those with intimate knowledge of the source material. References and concepts from Journey to the West and other Chinese mythology frequently flew over my head, so I found it difficult to invest in both the broader picture and its more intimate yarns. It’s a shame, because finally seeing a Chinese take on a Chinese story as classic as this one is inherently fascinating. A lot of people have only experienced the story through the lens of another country’s adaptation, and it’s clearly been treated here with a lot of care and attention to detail. There are moments I love–like every encounter you have with a headless monk who serenades you with a Sanxian–and the character designs are universally fantastic, but the story is hard to latch onto if you’re unfamiliar with Journey to the West or Chinese folklore and mythology in general.

Fortunately, one of Black Myth: Wukong’s greatest strengths is how it weaves Sun Wukong’s wonderous abilities into the framework of its fast-paced combat. The Monkey King is known for wielding Ruyi Jingu Bang, a magical staff that can shrink and extend at will. He can also create clones of himself from a single strand of hair, freeze enemies in place with a point from his finger, and shapeshift into a vast array of different forms. All of these abilities are represented in the game, expertly showcasing the Monkey King’s prodigious combat capabilities. By executing combos with the staff, you’ll see it elongate to bludgeon enemies with extra ferocity before reverting back to its original size. You can also make use of various spells that consume mana and operate on cooldowns. These include the ability to generate clones of yourself to give enemies more than a single target to focus on, and the use of a magic spell called Immobilize that lets you freeze your foes in place for a few seconds, giving you time to wail on them while they’re helplessly trapped or using the opportunity to take a step back and heal.

Shapeshifting is a significant part of your arsenal, too, as you’re able to transform into specific previously defeated enemies and utilize their different movesets and weapons. One of these transformations is called Red Tides, which you acquire early on after defeating the giant wolf Guangzhi. By shapeshifting into this ferocious canine, you’re able to wield his flaming glaive to inflict burn damage on your opponents as you twirl around and pull off a variety of combos. What’s more, each transformation has its own health bar, essentially providing you with an extra life. Once this health bar is extinguished or you’ve used up all of your Might by performing various attacks, you transform back into your usual self.

While shapeshifting and using quick-use spells to freeze enemies and overwhelm them with clones is rewarding, the core of Black Myth: Wukong’s combat lies in its unusual combo system

While shapeshifting and using quick-use spells to freeze enemies and overwhelm them with clones is rewarding, the core of Black Myth: Wukong’s combat lies in its unusual combo system. Light attacks are essentially a means to build Focus points, which are spent to unleash different heavy attacks. With enough upgrades, you can eventually bank up to three of these points at a time, and the game’s entire combat economy is built on farming Focus and cashing it in as soon as possible to deal significant damage. Light attacks do feel fairly weightless as a result, which is further emphasized by the small amount of damage they chip off each boss’s health bar. The game’s sense of impact comes from executing a full combo, especially if you’re able to transition from a light combo into a heavy finisher. In these moments, your staff begins to glow red-hot as it hurtles through the air and collides with an almighty thump. These attacks deal a ton of damage and regularly stagger enemies in satisfying fashion. Finding openings and using Immobilize to give yourself time to pull off these combos is the basis of Black Myth: Wukong’s combat. Once you’re able to keep a combo going while mixing in dodges and utilizing your bag of tricks, each boss fight becomes a frenetic and exhilarating dance to the death.

As an elaborate boss rush, Black Myth: Wukong lives and dies on the quality of its boss battles, and for the most part, they’re excellent. Each of the game’s six chapters offers a rogue’s gallery of thrilling foes to fight. Known as Yaoguai, these mythological beasts range from a giant black bear to a traditional Chinese dragon, a blood-spattered tiger, and many, many more in between. Blocking is not part of your extensive repertoire, and the only form of parrying is limited to a magic spell on a cooldown timer, so you need to excel at dodging to make it through each fight alive. This might sound intimidating if you don’t usually play tough action-RPGs, but outside of a couple of boss fights in later chapters, the game isn’t particularly challenging. This is coming from a souls-like veteran, so my gauge on what’s hard might be slightly skewed, but I defeated a number of the game’s bosses on my very first attempt. I still wouldn’t say Black Myth: Wukong is approachable, however, as its toughest bosses still pose a considerable threat, and there aren’t any difficulty options. The ramp-up to its most challenging moments is just more forgiving.

Whether you’re fighting on a frozen lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains or sloshing through a shallow pool of blood, these battles against the Yaoguai are frequent triumphs. There’s a sense of balletic elegance to its best boss fights, mixing martial arts influences with supernatural flair to create these tense and awe-inspiring encounters. You’re often challenged to learn attack patterns to nail the timing on dodges and figure out where openings occur so you can get a combo in. But there are also opportunities to be strategic with your abilities, too. Immobilize is ineffective against certain bosses, so you might go for a different spell, or vary your transformations to attack an enemy’s elemental weakness. Even if I sometimes found bosses relatively easy, that didn’t take away from their thrills, while the toughest among them were often met with a pounding heart and palpable elation when I finally managed to emerge victorious.

The game’s ability to produce this sensation is where Black Myth: Wukong feels most like a souls-like. There are more obvious similarities, such as a checkpoint system that respawns enemies when you rest, and a flask for healing that has a finite number of charges and can be refilled at said checkpoints. Yet aside from this, Game Science wasn’t lying when it said it wasn’t making a souls-like. This is none more obvious than in the game’s level design. For the most part, your path through each chapter is linear, albeit with a couple of forks in the road leading to optional bosses and crafting materials used for brewing potions and forging armor. Occasionally it opens up with more-expansive areas featuring numerous branching paths, but progression is still usually confined to a singular route, so linearity is present even when it doesn’t initially appear to be. This isn’t inherently bad, but the level design is straightforward and unimaginative–issues that are further compounded by an abundance of jarring invisible walls and a jump that’s functionally useless for most of the game. Throw in only a smattering of enemies that don’t pose much of a threat, and the sections between boss fights feel disappointingly sparse and languid.

I also need to mention a moment near the end of the game that stumped me for several hours because the solution is incredibly specific but not at all obvious, especially when there’s nothing else like it in the game. This sapped the momentum from the final chapter and had me questioning whether I had encountered a game-breaking bug or was just being ignorant.

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Each environment you explore does at least look fantastic. Whether you’re running through a bamboo forest grove punctuated by falling leaves and dense vegetation, entering a spider-infested estate illuminated by the faint glow of moonlight, or planting your feet on the sun-kissed rocks of a craggy canyon, Black Myth: Wukong is frequently beautiful. It ran exceptionally well for me on PC, too, compiling shaders at the outset to prevent the dreaded Unreal Engine 5 stutter.

Black Myth: Wukong is an uneven game where the highlights often outnumber the lowlights. Its triumphant boss battles and fast-paced combat make up for the stale moments in between, where bland level design and a scarcity of enemies will have you clamoring for the next face-off with a deadly Yaoguai. I appreciate that it’s not just another souls-like in what is now a crowded genre, and the choice to go for a boss gauntlet is unexpected and, honestly, quite refreshing. It’s disappointing that it falters outside of its cinematic clashes against mighty beasts, but designing this many rousing boss battles while avoiding a sense of fatigue is no mean feat and deserves praise.

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Black Myth: Wukong has 81 bosses, a nod to the 81 trials to attain Buddhahood in Journey to the West. It may seem daunting at first, but the novel the game is based on also has numerous monsters and hostile denizens, so it’s arguably faithful in a way, too. Here’s our Black Myth: Wukong boss guide so you’ll know what to expect from the campaign. Naturally, please be reminded that this article contains major spoilers.

Black Myth: Wukong boss guide

Black Myth: Wukong is not exactly a “boss rush” game. That is, you’re not going to stay in the same location fighting one tough foe after another. While there are plenty of opponents, you’re still able to explore various areas, some of which have side quests and secrets. That being said, the sheer number means it’s no easy feat to try and eliminate all your foes. As such, our Black Myth: Wukong boss guide is organized in the following manner: