Black Myth: Wukong Review - Nearly a Hundred Bosses, Three Very Different Verdicts

Black Myth: Wukong was the game Josh had been hyping for years. Paul was lukewarm, especially after IGN called it harder than Shadow of the Erdtree. Ryan famously hates Soulslikes. So this deep dive had three very different starting points, and it ended in a place none of us predicted.

It was also Paul's last regular deep dive as a host. Fittingly, it was a game he loved.

What is it?

It's an action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology and the classic Journey to the West. Sun Wukong battles celestial forces, is broken into six relics, and you, the Destined One, set out to recover them across six chapters. Josh's story summary was a little shaky ("there's a story"), but the gist is right.

It launched to mixed critic scores (81 on PC, 72 on console at recording) and a 95% positive rating on Steam, with a peak of 2.4 million concurrent players. That was second only to PUBG, ahead of Elden Ring, Palworld and Counter-Strike.

The graphics

Each chapter has a new biome: forest, desert, snowy mountains. The details are lovely. Your footprints trail through sand, your staff drags a line through the snow, your fur collects snow mid-fight, and the tips of your staff glow and then cool. Paul compared it to a restaurant that bakes its own bread. When a studio puts that much care into the visuals, you can tell they cared about everything else too.

Is it a Soulslike?

All three of us say no. It's a faster, flashier action game. Josh, who has beaten Malenia, struggled badly for the first two chapters because he was playing it like Elden Ring. It finally clicked around the chapter 2 finale. Paul, who doesn't like Souls games, beat most of the roughly 95 bosses in one or two tries. His one nemesis, the Scorpion Lord, took about 60 attempts. His tip: unlike in Souls games, dodges aren't a blanket of invulnerability, so you have to vary your direction. Ryan got stuck on the chapter 2 final boss (about "400 attempts," by his count) and didn't want to wander for three hours hunting the item that makes it easier.

Combat and spells

You juggle health, mana, stamina and Focus, three staff stances, a healing gourd, spells, transformations, Spirits and vessels.

• The basic combo felt too simple to Josh: light, light, light, maybe one heavy, then roll. His A button is worn out.
• The stances add more than Josh gives them credit for, according to Paul and Ryan. Pillar stance has you perched on a growing staff for a massive slam. Ryan calls it grown-up Goku.
• The spells are where it shines. Immobilize never left Josh's bar. Rock Solid turns you to stone and shatters shields. Pluck of Many summons a mob of clones, and when maxed out, the clones cast their own spells. Paul watched them solo bosses.
• The perfect-dodge after-image and sound effect are wonderfully satisfying.

The downsides

• No map. Paul notoriously gets lost in games, and this time all three of us did. Ryan couldn't find his way back to a boss for 20 minutes. Josh explored a snowy fork for 20 minutes and ended up where he started.
• Long boss fights. Josh felt like he was tickling bosses through 30 combos for two millimeters of health.
• Hitboxes feel off, especially on the chapter 3 electric dragon.
• Too many bosses back to back. Ryan wanted more breathing room between them. Josh's friend Andy refunded the game after two hours of boss after boss. Paul thinks the bosses are the best part.
• Crafting is thin, and we never used the consumables.

Performance was mostly great for us: a couple of frame drops, a stuck camera under a boss, and one crash in 24 hours for Josh.

What we loved

The animated interludes between chapters are a highlight. Each one uses a different style (anime, claymation, a silent parable), and the one after chapter 3 stuck with Ryan. And studio Game Science started in 2018 with just 13 people. Its first trailer was meant to recruit programmers and pulled in 10,000 résumés.

The VGP take

Paul gave it a 9.7: above God of War Ragnarök, above Helldivers 2, and his best game of the year by far. He played two- and three-hour sessions of a game in this genre, which he never does.

Josh gave it an 8.7. It's very good, but it's missing the magic that keeps him up for hours the way Elden Ring does. He remembers maybe four of the 30 bosses he's fought so far.

Ryan gave it an 8.3: it's not his style, but the combat and spells won him over more than he expected.

It's a remarkable first AAA game. If boss fights are your favorite part of any game, it's a must-play.