Black Myth: Wukong

Black Myth: Wukong was provided by Game Science for review. Thank you!

The time has finally arrived! I remember seeing the first trailer for Black Myth: Wukong and getting so excited for it. I have always found Sun Wukong's story to be fascinating, and seeing it brought to life this way just pumped me up. This was one of the games that actually made me extremely excited to review it, and there isn't a ton that makes me feel so energetic to work on it. While playing the game completely drained me of that energy, it was all worth it, and it's an experience I think anyone who enjoys souls-likes will have a blast with.

Black Myth: Wukong, at its heart, is an Action RPG similar to the souls-like games. It's a brutal third-person fighting game where you will need to use your skill to dodge and use the different abilities and spells you collect to eliminate the enemies in front of you. You may be familiar with a lot of the mechanics if you have played Dark Souls, and a lot of similarities with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but I like how Wukong implements them.

You will be running around and swinging your pole at enemies to take down their health bar and kill them. You have your main "light" attack, and you can splice in heavy attacks. These heavy attacks can only be triggered when you have enough focus points, which you get by attacking with your light attack, and can be utilized for combos and its own special attack, which you can charge up if you don't have enough focus.

Your attacks will drain your stamina, so you have to ensure you don't eat up all of it while your spells have a dedicated Mana bar. The spells you have are extremely helpful and can range from freezing an enemy for some time to creating clones of yourself or even turning yourself into a rock to deflect attacks coming at you. Each spell has its uses, and I enjoyed that the most effective way to destroy the bigger enemies is finding a balance between light attacks, heavy attacks, and spells to deal the most damage. You can also utilize Spirits and Transformations, which change you into an enemy you have fought and absorbed the spirit of, to deal damage and augment your stats.

You also have the ability to dodge, which you will use very often since you can't block attacks. However, you can time your dodge right when the enemy strikes to get a perfect dodge, which can give you extra focus, increased attack, and more when you upgrade it.

Speaking of which, as you fight, you will gain experience that levels you up, giving you a point to put into your skill tree. There are many different skills you can put points into, which can enhance your stamina, different attacks, unlock new moves, and enhance spells, transformations, and spirits. You can enhance all of your abilities to some degree, and a lot of them highlight using other types of moves to maximize the damage you do.

You can also craft new weapons and equipment to increase your attack and defense and provide bonuses if you equip enough from the same set using materials you get from around the world and defeating bosses. There is a gourd you use to drink from and regain health, which can also be upgraded and enhanced with the number of drinks you can take and augment the effects it can give, like poison resistance or extra healing when you are at low health.

The way all of Black Myth: Wukong's systems interact with each other is great to play around with, and I found myself enjoying utilizing my entire arsenal to destroy my foes. I love the faster-paced combat compared to similar games, and I like the progression systems to enhance Wukong. It can be a bit aggravating with how hard it is, as a lot of soul-likes are, and I found the game is both easier and harder in some ways. I also like that not all of the smaller enemies can kill you easily, and while some of the bigger ones can do real damage, it feels balanced.

There are some minor areas where I wish there had been some changes, though. One of the things I hate is when I use a spell, but if I get hit simultaneously, my spell won't trigger; I would be hit, and the cooldown would be in effect as if it were triggered. I can understand my spell not triggering at all from this, but the fact that it still triggers me is a bit frustrating. It was also easy to get lost since there was no map to follow, and I got lost every now and then in the linear-ish world. There are some guiding lights when you get close to a shrine, where you can save your game, rest and replenish your health/gourd, craft weapons and armor, and set your spells, but otherwise, you have to figure out your way.

Thankfully, going around the map is just nice to look at. Each biome is varied and gorgeously designed. There are some spots that feel barren, but these aren't large swaths of spots and usually hold the purpose of housing a bunch of enemies. The world is pretty linear overall, but there are some branching paths where you can find new spirits, materials for crafting, or side quests to help out other characters in different ways. I can be oblivious sometimes, so it's a very good look if I am able to find some secrets and put the pieces together, which I did!

As for the enemies, the generic smaller foes are nicely designed, but the characters and bosses are where the designs really shine. Each boss looks extremely unique, with some of the later bosses really wowing me with their designs. The characters are intriguing as well, like the headless musician in Chapter 2, but I feel like the massive bosses really take the cake.

Black Myth: Wukong's story itself is alright. If you know Sun Wukong's backstory, it will make a lot more sense, but it can feel a little disjointed if you don't. The general story is understandable, you are the destined one trying to revive Sun Wukong and need to gather all of his relics, but what happens in each chapter can feel random. Different chapters will place Wukong in different regions without much context on how they got there, and characters will be introduced that don't provide much exposition behind who they are. There is something called Portraits that provides some overarching background lore of the game world, which does help a bit, but it still left me a bit confused with the characters.

While I didn't expect much, I can say the game is definitely playable on the Steam Deck, though you will need some compromises.

Black Myth: Wukong - Steam Deck Performance

Black Myth: Wukong is playable on the Steam Deck, but there are a couple of issues to note. The first is RAM usage. The game eats up a lot of RAM when you play, and I suffered multiple crashes without changing anything. To fix this, you will need to change your UMA Buffer to 4G and use CryoUtilities. Both of these help out games that use too much RAM, so these crashes will be gone. You can see how to do both of these in our Steam Deck Performance YouTube video for the game.

I also want to address performance. Game Science released a benchmarking tool showing that the game can run at 40 FPS on the Deck. While there are a good amount of areas that can, there are a lot that suffer drops, especially in boss battles and later biomes. On top of that, trying to run at 40 FPS with the SteamOS framerate limiter adds input lag, which really hurts the experience. Because of this, 30 FPS with the in-game framerate limit is the way to go.

The benchmark tool also utilizes the frame generation of Black Myth: Wukong. I didn't notice any input lag with this on, but when it doesn't hit 60 FPS, the frame gen makes the stuttering feel much worse. Without the frame gen, the benchmarking tool stuck around 30 FPS and slightly lower.

There are still going to be some drops in some areas, but for the most part, it will stick to 30. Cutscenes will drop, but almost the entirety of every boss battle was able to hold at 30. It will need low settings with FSR at 50, and it will be a little blurry when you are running around, but you can still make everything out, and the game will look great overall. The game will also need an unrestricted TDP, with most open areas hitting 20W battery drain and the smaller ones going down to 14W. Boss battles will generally be at the max your battery can handle.

There may also be some drops depending on how many characters are on screen. Most of the time, this isn't an issue, but there are some battles where if you make clones and there is a lot happening or there are a lot of characters, there will be drops.

It may not be the most optimal way to play, but Black Myth: Wukong can be played on the Steam Deck, and it's pretty amazing. I had a blast playing it this way, and I would recommend it if you have no other way to play:

Accessibility

Wukong has a specific accessibility tab where they put a Colorblind Mode (which supports Deuteranopia, Protanoipa, and Tritanopia), and toggle Motion Blur and Subtitles. Outside of that, you can change auto targeting, tutorial messages, HUD elements being on or off, camera controls like inverting and sensitivity, language, and audio volumes.

The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, so there are black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, but there is cloud save and controller support. There are no HDR settings.

Conclusion

Black Myth: Wukong is a really enjoyable, fast-paced souls-like that sucked me in with its gameplay loop, detailed world, and gorgeous enemy designs. I enjoyed how the combat felt, with an emphasis on dodging and using all of your abilities to overcome fights, and I felt successful when I completed each battle, especially with bosses. The world and enemies also look amazing, and while I could get a bit lost with little direction, I ended up finding my way each time through trial and error.

Some of the bosses were a bit more difficult, which is expected of souls-likes, and there are some little nuisances like being hit right when you cast a spell which makes it cooldown without activating, but these are small in the grand scheme. If you aren't familiar with Sun Wukong's story, you may get a little lost with the characters and how you end up where you end up, but the overarching narrative makes sense and is still understandable.

I am shocked at how playable the game is on the Steam Deck knowing it's a brand new title, but it is. The compromises that need to be made are minor compared to what I have seen for other games, and I would still consider it completely playable, even if it is a little blurry at times and needs a locked 30 FPS. For the full glorious experience, I would play this on a more powerful PC, but overall, I had a blast playing this on the go.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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