Black Myth: Wukong is a good action RPG with one helluva boss rush, but what's between those battles holds it back from true greatness

Six years after it entered development and four after developer Game Science first announced the title to the world, Black Myth: Wukong is finally launching on Windows PC and PS5 in just a few days, with an Xbox version also in the works. It's poised to be one of 2024's biggest releases, especially for fans of action-adventure games with RPG elements.

Enamored with footage of its dazzling boss fights and visually stunning environments, players have been fervently excited for Black Myth: Wukong for many months now — a fact that's evidenced by its position at the top of Steam's most-wishlisted games list. But does Game Science's high-octane action RPG actually live up to the hype? Is it truly one of the best PC games of the year?

Having played through the game this past week, I'm ultimately left feeling conflicted about how I'd answer those questions. Without a doubt, Black Myth: Wukong is a good game — a very solid ARPG with engaging bosses, fun combat mechanics, immaculate audiovisual presentation, and an enjoyable, well-written narrative. Unfortunately, though, the levels between those encounters, the enemies within them, and a sizable portion of the game's progression system all leave quite a bit to be desired, ultimately holding it back from greatness.

Black Myth: Wukong | $52.69 at CDKeys (PC, Steam)

Though Black Myth: Wukong is undoubtedly a good ARPG overall, its disappointing levels, lackluster enemy variety, and a superfluous loot system all hold it back from being truly great. That said, it's definitely still worth a pickup, especially if you can get it for a discount.

Also see: Epic Games Store | WeGame | PlayStation Store

What is Black Myth: Wukong?

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Before going further, I'll first give a broad overview of what type of game Black Myth: Wukong actually is, as well as what you can expect from it if you decide to pick it up.

Black Myth: Wukong is a single player action RPG developed and published by Game Science, a studio that's been working on the title since 2018. First announced publicly in 2020, it's since become one of the most highly anticipated action games, and could very well have one of this year's largest game launches. Like many other action RPGs, it features a combat system with stylish melee combos and evasive dodges, along with skill trees, spells, gear unlocks, and other upgrades.

Compared to open and non-linear games like Elden Ring, Black Myth: Wukong is far more straightforward, with its grandiose boss battles broken up by simple levels and engagements with minor enemies. Indeed, it's best described as a boss rush, with each of its fights as visually striking as they are engaging and challenging. It's far from the hardest ARPG I've ever played, mind, but don't expect a walk in the park, either.

Narratively, the game is based on the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West, with players taking control of the Destined One — a character based on Sun Wukong, one of the main protagonists of the literary work. Like the book it's adapting, the story and setting are both heavily inspired by Chinese mythology and have several strong connections to it.

The Black Myth: Wukong release date is scheduled for August 20, 2024, though it's actually coming out late on August 19 in the United States. It's available on Windows PC and PS5 and can be purchased on Steam, the Epic Games Store, WeGame, and the PlayStation Store, though notably, the Steam version is just $52.69 at CDKeys right now thanks to a deal. The game is coming to Xbox Series X|S at some point, though it's not clear when.

Black Myth: Wukong review — Gameplay and bosses

Black Myth: Wukong's difficulty, its stamina-based combat mechanics, and its use of enemy-respawning checkpoints has led many to peg it as a Soulslike (a game designed to be similar to FromSoftware titles such as Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring), but having played it through, I'd say it's more of a traditional ARPG with Soulslike elements — very similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, in fact. It may have "bonfires" and challenging encounters to master, but it deviates from the Soulsborne formula with skill trees, tiered gear unlocks and upgrades, one main weapon (your staff), and linear, straightforward levels.

Undoubtedly, the best part of Black Myth's gameplay is its core combat system, which features three distinct staff forms — each with their own varied skill options — you can swap between as you fight. The default is Smash Stance, which gives access to a versatile moveset with both offensive and defensive capabilities. Then there's Pillar Stance, a protective posture that allows you to perch on top of your staff to avoid sweeping ground attacks before delivering powerful counter-attacks. Finally, there's the Thrust Stance, which is slower and emphasizes dishing out big chunks of damage from medium range with charged-up thrusts.

All three stances have abilities that require Focus to use, which you can generate by striking with your basic combos, holding the heavy attack input, or timing perfect dodges when avoiding incoming attacks. Notably, since dodges animation cancel any offensive action you're in the middle of, it's possible to maintain devastating attack chains and plenty of Focus generation while defending yourself, making moment-to-moment gameplay incredibly fluid and fun. The only limiting factor is your stamina, but even that can be replenished quickly mid-combo if you take certain skills while leveling up.

Beyond your staff, Black Myth: Wukong also has some special spells and transformations that are a blast to use, both of which are limited by cooldowns as well as a finite bar of Mana energy that can only be refilled by resting at checkpoints. Some effects of the former include freezing enemies in place, creating an army of rapidly attacking clones, and even briefly turning yourself into stone to "parry" a strike (think Hardening in Mortal Shell), while the latter enable you to turn into adversaries you've previously beaten, gain a temporary health bar, and use their signature moves. I do wish there were more of both of these, but even so, I've had a great time using them at opportune moments to give myself an edge in tough boss fights.

Speaking of boss battles, they're the other highlight of Black Myth: Wukong, with each of the game's chapters including multiple climactic showdowns with mythological beasts and warriors that are full of jaw-dropping audiovisual spectacle. With a handful of exceptions — Chapter 2's final boss has a phase three that drove me up the wall, and one major boss encountered midway through Chapter 3 feels very cheap due to camera issues and a ridiculous health pool — each of these opponents also have beautifully animated and well-telegraphed attacks that make learning their movesets an intuitive and engaging process, and they're balanced so that you'll be able to beat them effectively regardless of how you choose to build the Destined One's stats and abilities.

Sadly, the areas between bosses are where Black Myth: Wukong stumbles significantly, with woefully bland level designs that often don't give players any interesting side routes to explore and have frustratingly lackluster minor enemy variety. I don't mind levels that have linear progression paths, but if you don't flesh them out with meaningful things to find or a decently diverse collection of foes, they become quite dull to play through. That's not to say there's nothing to uncover — you can find a few spells, core stat upgrades, and optional minibosses by exploring — but compared to something like last year's similar Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Black Myth's struggles here are painfully apparent.

Most of the other things you'll find are chests with crafting materials that tie into Black Myth's redundant gear system, as they're used to craft new pieces of armor, weapon upgrades, and consumables at checkpoints. Gear and loot is an important part of most ARPGs, but in Black Myth, it feels entirely inconsequential and like it's just there to trigger a dopamine release whenever you see a green up arrow on stat comparisons. You're never driven to make a thoughtful decision about what you equip since there's no encumbrance mechanic to keep in mind, no item bonuses that actually have meaningful effects, and terrible equipment variety overall, so why bother including craftable gear in the first place? 

In the end, I find myself wishing that Game Science either trimmed the fat and just didn't add gear progression like FromSoftware opted to do in Sekiro, or that it took Team Ninja's approach with Nioh and Wo Long and gave players a wide variety of unlocks with impactful pros and cons to weigh. Paired with more interesting level designs to scatter items like this in, the latter option would have elevated Black Myth: Wukong to an entirely new level.

Black Myth: Wukong review — Story (No spoilers)

I'm very limited in terms of what I can actually discuss of Black Myth: Wukong's story (no spoilers ahead), but speaking as someone who has never read (and now eagerly wants to read) Journey to the West, I liked it quite a bit, with its likable characters and excellent cutscenes making the adventure a fun one to experience. I can't speak to its quality as an adaptation, however.

The highlights of the narrative are the game's cutscenes, which seamlessly play out between riveting gameplay encounters and boast stellar animation work. Between chapters of the tale, there are additional cinematics that are especially wonderful, though I don't want to spoil what they are here. Just know that they're a real treat.

Beyond those, finer details of the story are conveyed in abstract ways not unlike the Souls-style approach, with significant bits of information alluded to in cryptic dialogues, hinted at in environmental details, or tucked away in written "Portrait" profiles on defeated bosses and enemies. Admittedly, there's nothing mind-blowing here, but I enjoyed diving into the deeper lore nevertheless.

Black Myth: Wukong review — Visuals and audio

Black Myth: Wukong was developed on Unreal Engine 5, and now that I've journeyed through its mythological world, I'm happy to say that it definitely shows. Full of vivid color, detailed visual effects, gorgeous lighting, and outstanding animations, it's one of the best-looking new games I've played in years — and paired with Game Science's amazing art direction, the fidelity makes it an absolute feast for the eyes.

In particular, the game's environments are spectacular, and are as numerous as they are beautiful. The Destined One's adventure takes players through everything from verdant, sun-dappled forests and colorful autumnal woods to extreme biomes like a scorching, sandy desert and frigid snow-covered mountains. Spread throughout all of these are intricately detailed interior spaces and manmade structures, including cave systems, underground tunnels, temples, and more.

Black Myth's visual excellence is complimented by its audio, as combat is flush with punchy, satisfying sound effects and its Chinese voice acting sounds great (I played the game with subtitles, so I can't currently speak to the quality of the English voice work). The score is well done, too, with the action-centric soundtrack featuring plenty of Chinese instruments and lively energy.

Black Myth: Wukong review — Performance

On the performance side of things, Black Myth: Wukong is — for the most part — great (make sure you check out its system requirements and whether it'll run on Steam Deck/ROG Ally). On High settings with AMD Super Resolution and Frame Generation on a PC with an NVIDIA RTX 3070, an Intel Core i5-12600K, and 32GB of DDR4 RAM, I was getting a consistent 70-80 FPS throughout most of the game while playing on my 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor. The resulting experience was incredibly smooth and enjoyable overall, though I did run into a few problems.

The first was a semi-frequent slowdown that had a chance to occur whenever a boss used attacks with lots of particle effects, chugging my framerate down to the twenties whenever it happened. Though this didn't affect my ability to dodge them too much, there were a fair number of times I got hit because I was distracted by the sudden jarring performance dip or was unsure of when to press the dodge input.

Secondly, I also encountered some minor hitches and stutters, both during the aforementioned VFX-heavy moves and at other times, too. These were somewhat rare and also minor enough that they didn't interfere with my gameplay much, but they have the potential to be very annoying if they happen at the wrong time.

Black Myth: Wukong review — Final thoughts

Ultimately, Black Myth: Wukong is a very solid action RPG with its thrilling cinematic boss fights, diverse, gorgeously rendered locales, rich combat system replete with build options, and well-told story. However, it holds itself back with bland level design and disappointing enemy variety, along with a superfluous gear system and a few noteworthy performance issues.

The game is absolutely worth a pickup if you're a fan of challenging ARPGs, stunning visuals, and good storytelling — especially if you see it on sale (remember that the PC version is available for a small discount at CDKeys at launch). Still, though, I can't help but think about how much better it would be if its flatter elements had more depth and substance.

Black Myth: Wukong is scheduled to release worldwide on August 20, 2024, with the game first launching on Windows PC and PS5 and then eventually coming to Xbox Series X|S at some point in the future.

Black Myth: Wukong | $52.69 at CDKeys (PC, Steam)

Though Black Myth: Wukong is undoubtedly a good ARPG overall, its disappointing levels, lackluster enemy variety, and a superfluous loot system all hold it back from being truly great. That said, it's definitely still worth a pickup, especially if you can get it for a discount.

Also see: Epic Games Store | WeGame | PlayStation Store