Black Myth: Wukong Review Summary

Stunning Visuals and Graphics: The game is widely praised for its breathtaking visuals, detailed environments, and beautiful landscapes. Players appreciate the high-quality graphics and the artistic design that brings the game world to life.

Engaging and Challenging Combat: The combat system is highly praised for being fluid, challenging, and satisfying. Players enjoy the depth and engagement of the combat mechanics, which are well-balanced and thoughtfully designed.

Rich Chinese Mythology: The game is noted for its deep integration of Chinese mythology, which adds a layer of cultural richness and educational value. Players appreciate the detailed and respectful adaptation of Chinese myths and folklore.

Impressive Boss Fights: The boss fights are highlighted as some of the best features of the game, with unique, challenging, and cinematic encounters. Players enjoy the variety and creativity in boss designs and mechanics.

Deep and Immersive Story: The game features a rich and detailed story that is deeply immersive. Players appreciate the narrative depth and the meaningful moments that make the story engaging and enjoyable.

Invisible walls disrupt gameplay: Players frequently encounter invisible walls that hinder exploration and break immersion. These walls are poorly implemented and make navigation confusing.

Difficulty and control issues: The game has a high difficulty curve with no option to change difficulty settings. Controls are also problematic, with issues in sensitivity and button response.

Poor optimization and performance: The game suffers from significant optimization issues, including poor performance, frame rate drops, and lag. These problems affect the overall gameplay experience.

Frequent and detailed boss fights: The game features a high frequency of boss encounters that can be learned through repeated attempts. The boss fights are well-designed and require specific combos and movesets.

Souls-like combat mechanics: The combat mechanics are compared to Souls-like games, involving stamina management and unique mechanics. The combat system is praised for its practicality and visual appeal.

Story requires interpretation: The game's story requires player interpretation and reading to fully understand the narrative structure.

Dodge and combat strategies: The game emphasizes dodging and using special items to avoid attacks. Players need to master extreme dodging and countering red projectiles.

Detailed and interactive scenery: The game features detailed scenery based on real landscapes and includes interactive paintings that tell the story of the lands and history. There are meditation spots to appreciate the environment.

Severe performance issues: Many players report unbearable stuttering, poor optimization, and performance issues making the game unplayable. This includes frequent frame drops, crashes, and general instability.

Graphical problems: Players experience various graphics issues such as poor graphics quality, visual glitches, and problems with environmental lighting. Specific issues include black spots on cutscenes and problems with light and shadow transitions.

Hardware and settings issues: The game requires high-end hardware and has issues running on higher settings. Players report that high settings cause FPS drops and the game runs best on medium settings.

Troubleshooting steps: Some players have suggested various troubleshooting steps to resolve issues, such as verifying file integrity, fixing C++ runtime libraries, and reinstalling the game or Steam.

Specific platform performance: The game runs well on Linux with Proton and has been played on Steam Deck. Some players report good performance on specific setups.

Highly recommended game: The game is highly recommended and worth purchasing, with many players encouraging others to try it.

Recommended for souls-like fans: The game is particularly recommended for fans of souls-like games and those new to the genre, but not for those tired of it.

Consider other action games: Some players suggest there are better action games available, but this game is perfect for those who enjoy repeated challenges.

Hope for more content: Players hope for more exploration, dungeons, and DLCs to continue the journey.

Edition purchase advice: Players advise buying the standard edition if short on money and the deluxe edition if you have the budget.

Steam Deck: The analysis of user feedback for the Steam Deck experience of the game reveals several key issues. Performance problems, including stuttering and crashes, are frequently mentioned, particularly during boss fights. Optimization and compatibility issues are also significant, with users noting improvements over time but still requiring tools like FSR for better performance. Control and input issues are another common complaint, with users finding the initial control scheme problematic. Lastly, while the visual quality is praised, the reliance on upscaling technologies like DLSS and FSR can lead to visual artifacts and reduced image quality. These issues collectively impact the user experience, making it less seamless and more frustrating at times.

Monetization: The game is praised for its lack of microtransactions and complete content availability without additional purchases. However, there are mixed feelings about the pricing and the value of the DLC. Some users find the game overpriced, while others believe it is worth the cost, especially if on sale.

Mod reliance: The game has several performance and graphical issues that users frequently address with mods from NexusMods. While the base game is playable, community fixes are often relied upon to enhance performance, graphics, and gameplay mechanics. However, there is no widespread consensus that the game is unplayable without mods, and many issues are related to preferences and enhancements rather than critical bugs.

External guides: The analysis of user feedback reveals significant issues with the game's design and user experience. The primary complaints revolve around the lack of guidance and hidden content, which forces players to rely heavily on external resources such as wikis and guides. Map design and navigation issues are also frequently mentioned, with users expressing frustration over invisible walls and confusing layouts. Additionally, the difficulty of boss fights and the overall game is a common theme, with users desiring better hints or guidance during challenging sections. Inventory and crafting management are noted as areas where players struggle without external help. Lastly, the game's exploration and completion aspects are criticized for poor design choices, making it difficult to fully enjoy the game without relying on external guides.

Performance improvement on OS change: An update mentions that the game no longer stutters after changing the operating system, indicating a performance improvement.

Enjoyment in boss revisits: Players enjoy the feature of revisiting bosses, suggesting that this is a popular and well-received aspect of the game.

Refund issues reported: Some players have reported issues with getting refunds for the game.