Black Myth: Wukong review – ape escapades

Games from China have been having a much more global impact lately, albeit mostly free-to-play ones. Black Myth: Wukong could change that.

A game based on the beloved 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West is hardly anything new; countless adaptations have been made over decades, including the Andy Serkis-starring game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, an opera written by Damon Albarn, and hugely popular manga/anime Dragon Ball. Black Myth: Wukong is the first Chinese-made adaption to make a big splash in the west, having turned heads when developer Game Science dropped its first in-engine gameplay trailer back in 2020.

It reimagines the tale as a dark fantasy, with jaw-droppingly animated combat and larger-than-life set pieces. The millions of eyeballs those trailers reached have raised huge expectations for what is essentially the studio’s first premium blockbuster. Can it actually live up to the hype?

Animal kingdom

That vision for a cinematic gameplay experience is apparent from the off. As the legendary monkey king Sun Wukong, you rebel against heaven and have an epic battle in the clouds as your combat tutorial. Alas, this ends in defeat and the monkey’s powers are split into six relics scattered across the world. You actually play as a lowly level-one reincarnation of the monkey, known as the Destined One.

Each of the game’s six chapters takes you to different locations, from a mountainous forest to a desert wasteland, on the journey to reclaim Wukong’s powers. Taking down animal demon deities (or ‘yaoguai’) who probably played a part in your downfall along the way is a decent video game set-up. Even if you’re not familiar with the characters reimagined from the source material, it’s not so much of an issue when their designs make a strong impression on their own – though it’s a shame some are given pretty basic names, at least in the English translation. Shape-shifting transformations are a key theme, so there’s a martial arts-fighting tiger, beautiful maidens who are actually spiders, and an uncouth pig who also joins you on your adventure, to name but a few examples.

A lot of attention has been paid to the stunning Unreal engine visuals and the Destined One’s acrobatic combat animations, which look every bit as good as God of War or Elden Ring, but with the addition of unique Chinese architecture and cultural aesthetics. You also get to see the breadth of Game Science’s artistry, as each chapter finishes with the tragic backstory of the main boss told through anime-inspired cutscenes. The best one is actually done with stop-motion animation.

It’s an exquisite treat to behold, yet also surprisingly not limited to players with the fanciest rig; you can technically run Black Myth: Wukong on your PC with even the ageing GTX 1060. I say technically, because ahead of launch, it’s clearly not been optimised. I’ve been playing on a mid-range laptop and experienced lengthy loading times as well as many instances of bottlenecks where the game would just freeze up repeatedly, though there’s also been reports from of issues from reviewers with the latest GTX 40 GPUs (note: I requested code for PS5, which was not available in advance, while optimisation issues means the Xbox Series X/S version has been delayed indefinitely). In other words, you’d probably not want to play it on your Steam Deck even if you can.

Monkey see, monkey do

From its dark fantasy trappings, Black Myth: Wukong has the vibe of a Soulslike, including save shrines that respawn enemies when you rest, as well as formidable bosses who’ll beat you black and blue until you learn their attack patterns. However, similar to Stellar Blade, it’s also more of a character action game where you’re regularly levelling up with points that can be spent on various skill trees, and you don’t have to worry about losing and retrieving any lost experience when you die.

For all the Destined One’s agile and acrobatic abilities, his base combat is limited to fighting with a staff, where you’re kind of just mashing combos with light attack. While there is a heavy attack, it’s really only effective when you’ve built up meter to earn focus points, and then there’s variety in being able to switch between stances. The pillar stance, for example has the staff placed vertically on the ground while you place yourself at the top, allowing you to avoid ground attacks before countering; thrust stance makes your staff like a spear with a good ranged poke. They also however have a lengthy animation that can easily be interrupted by an enemy’s attack, putting your efforts to waste.

Given your only basic defence is to dodge (though perfect dodge not only helps gain focus but also leaves behind a cool afterimage of the Destined One), it’s the magic spells that really helps mix things up. One of the first spells you get might even seem too powerful, as you freeze enemies for a short time – even in the middle of an attack animation. Another lets you disappear and then reappear with a critical counter, or you can even summon many clones of yourself to wail on the enemy. It almost reminds me of Final Fantasy XVI’s combat abilities, but with the annoying part that these run on an often lengthy cooldown, as well as consuming a mana gauge that you can’t refill with any kind of potion.

Another cool aspect is how you can capture the spirits of certain special mini-bosses, allowing you to transform as them, complete with their unique movesets for a limited time or for a one-off move. These have an even more ridiculous cooldown, meaning that you’ll probably only get to use it in a boss fight once. There’s probably a version of Black Myth: Wukong that could have just been a straight-up action game, but the developer has decided to stubbornly place Soulsy constraints. Difficulty is more often just because so many bosses have a spongey health bar.

Invisible world

If you can perfect dodge attacks like a wizard you might find Black Myth: Wukong’s combat a little one-note, as you can basically get through the whole game like that. For the rest of us mere mortals, boss fights can feel pretty uneven or sometimes downright unfair. Think perfect-dodging out of one attack only to get smacked by something else, or going in for a combo only for a gigantic boss to have hitboxes my staff is somehow unable to reach.

A few bosses throw in some mechanics that force you to complete a side quest and defeat an optional boss before being given a new item or power that can actually even the odds. It’s a curious choice as you might expect optional bosses would be there if you wanted more of a challenge, rather than almost mandatory to stand a chance at a story boss.

While that does incentivise you to explore more of the game’s rich worlds, it does also expose the cracks if you veer off the otherwise linear mode of boss-rushing that makes up most of the first chapter. As with many other games with visually dense and beautifully detailed environments, it’s actually easy to get lost and figure out where it is you’re supposed to be going. Sometimes I’d be following what I thought was the main path only to reach a dead end. Puzzlingly, one chapter has a gate that requires two key items to open but the gate itself turns out to be little more than a shortcut to an area I managed to reach another way.

It’s further compounded by a lot of invisible walls, making it very unclear and inconsistent where you can and cannot go, though it’s also not immune to the old chestnut of squeezing through a narrow gap in a wall. As you aimlessly wander around, it also becomes apparent that outside the boss battles, the rank-and-file enemies don’t present much of a challenge at all, in a few areas simply just standing with their back to you to be used as a punching bag. It’s almost made up by the fact that the secret areas and bosses are actually quite novel and decent set pieces in their own right. It’s just a shame that you’ll just as quickly bump into borders that reveals that much of the world you see is just an illusion.

Black Myth: Wukong verdict

Black Myth: Wukong is as mesmerising as it is frustrating. It certainly lives up to being one of the most visually fantastic games to come out of China, the artistry not just limited to photorealistic Unreal graphics but larger-than-life set pieces, stylised beasts and mythological figures, and other elements drawn straight from the rich well of Chinese culture.

Yet while there’s lots of like in its action-oriented gameplay, I can’t help but think that somewhere there’s a perfectly decent old-school 10-15 hour action game that’s been made to drag out into a 40-hour Soulslike slog where its limitations become more apparent. Performance issues and the lack of console versions ahead of launch also means I can’t confidently recommend it until those issues are fixed.

Yet in spite of those caveats, that this game now exists feels like an achievement not just for Game Science but for other Chinese studios looking to make the crossover over to premium blockbusters. Not perfect, but not a bad start either.