Black Myth Wukong Review: A Stunning and Ambitious Modern-Day Journey to the West

The release of Black Myth: Wukong has been highly anticipated, with the game having been in development since 2018. Now, nearly six years later, it's finally here, offering explosive action, stunning visuals, epic boss battles, and a rich narrative rooted in the iconic Chinese myth, Journey to the West.

Along for the Ride on a Beautiful but Distant Journey to the West

Black Myth: Wukong kicks off with an epic introductory cinematic, showcasing the original Sun Wukong battling elemental deities before eventually being sealed away. Years later, a new monkey warrior, the Destined One, is chosen to gather the six relics of Sun Wukong and revive the Monkey King.

The game comprises six chapters, each filled with challenging enemies and narrative-driven boss fights. After defeating each boss, you claim the relic they guard, leading to a unique ending cinematic for each chapter. These cinematic moments are masterfully done. One chapter utilizes full animation, another uses stop-motion, and another adopts a comic-book style.

They offer brief but poignant glimpses into the bosses' backstories, showing how they became the holders of these relics. After progressing through five chapters, the final battle awaits against Sun Wukong’s soulless husk in chapter 6. Once defeated, you claim the sixth relic and take on his name and mantle as the new Sun Wukong.

Now, the narrative arc — collecting relics to revive Wukong only to realize he can't be revived, so you take his place — functions well enough for an action game, but it leaves players following along feeling detached from the story.

The main character, the Destined One, is mute, so the bulk of the narrative is delivered by side characters who speak in poetic Chinese 75% of the time. While this adds to the mystical, epic atmosphere, it leaves players unfamiliar with the original Journey to the West feeling lost, and leaving newcomers (like myself) grasping for context.

Though the artistic choice of delivering the story through Chinese poetry might have been intended to heighten the sense of mysticism and grandeur, it ultimately weakens the player’s connection to the plot. The game feels more like a beautifully presented fetch quest, with occasional impressive cinematics and character moments. Rather than going on a great adventure to the West, you're left watching it unfold before you, which is disappointing.

However, despite its narrative shortcomings, Black Myth: Wukong excels in the details. The design of ancient structures, based on real-world buildings, is stunning and pulls you into the world’s atmosphere. The journal entries, in particular, are a highlight.

Each character and enemy, whether a boss or a common mob, has a detailed journal entry featuring a hand-drawn portrait, a small poem, and lore about the character. These small touches add depth to the world, even if the main story falters.

The voice acting is also top-tier, with both the Chinese and English dubs delivering performances that bring the characters to life. If the story had been more directly communicated and the dialogue refined to help players better grasp the plot, Black Myth: Wukong could have reached narrative greatness. Instead, it falls short of its potential, leaving a visually stunning but narratively distant experience.

Not a Souls-like, Just Aping Some of the Good Stuff

When it comes to the actual gameplay loop of Black Myth: Wukong, many consider it to be Souls-like, but I disagree. The game borrows some ideas from the Souls formula, such as dying and respawning at previous checkpoints and using these checkpoints to level up and progress, it’s more akin to NieR: Automata or Devil May Cry in my opinion.

The game is divided into levels (or chapters) that allow exploration, much like Devil May Cry, but each area is large enough to offer some off-the-beaten-path exploration, giving an open-world feel similar to NieR: Automata. It’s not a "boss-rush" game, as some players initially thought, although it might feel like one due to the sheer number of boss fights (more on that later).

You'll also find NPCs throughout the world with whom you can barter or complete quests, often unlocking additional boss fights. This gives the world a sense of scale and life without necessarily being an open-world game, and I appreciate the more condensed experience. It offers plenty to do without the need for a massive world to feel alive.

Explosive Combat That Hits Hard, But is Only Staff-Deep

Much of the excitement around Black Myth: Wukong was due to its combat and boss encounters. In the early trailers, both the combat and boss battles looked sublime, with staff slams, spell casting, and clone-creating mayhem taking center stage. Thankfully, the game lives up to the flashy, epic action that was first shown.

First, there’s the staff, which can be upgraded to various forms and is central to the gameplay. You can deliver a flurry of normal attacks, followed by heavy attacks, which vary depending on your chosen stance. Pillar Stance lets you perch on top of your staff before slamming it down in its extended form; Smash Stance lets you leap into the air and slam your staff down at mid-range; and Thrust Stance lets you charge up your staff and thrust it into enemies.

You also have a Focus Meter, which charges as you deal damage or dodge attacks. When full, you gain a charge that can be used for a heavy attack to deal extra damage. These charges can stack up to 3 or 4 and be consumed for powerful charged moves.

Then there are transformations, which let you transform into creatures you've encountered, along with magical abilities that consume mana to cast. These abilities range from immobilizing enemies, creating decoys, and turning into a parrying statue, to summoning clones of yourself to gang up on enemies.

You also have a dodge move, which, when timed perfectly, allows you to slip behind enemies and perform a counterattack, creating an afterimage that explodes. This mechanic reminded me immediately of the Dodge system in the NieR series. Combining these features leads to thrilling combat, and slamming enemies with a massive charged strike as the Destined One yells in victory is incredibly satisfying.

However, despite how tight the combat is, and how fun and varied the abilities are, the overall system is built on a weak foundation: the staff combat. Be it after 1 hour or 50 hours, you’ll still mostly be mashing the attack button with occasional heavy attacks.

The lack of combos is the main issue. Unlike games like Devil May Cry, where you can mix light and heavy attacks to unlock unique combos, Black Myth: Wukong sticks to a default set of moves. 

Sadly, by the time you reach the end, the combat can feel repetitive, and it doesn't offer much replayability. While the abilities and transformations are great, the core combat feels shallow and limited, which is disappointing, and honestly, robs this game of what it could have been.

Black Myth: Wukong's Bosses Rival FromSoftware's

This is a bold statement, but I genuinely believe the bosses in Black Myth: Wukong are on par with, and at times even better than, FromSoftware’s. There are 107 boss fights in the game, each offering a quality experience.

Bosses like Erlang are notoriously tough, with abilities like summoning spirit weapons and fast melee combos that challenge your reflexes. In contrast, an earlier game boss like Lingxuzi is less complex with a smaller health pool, but it's quick combos and high-speed movement make for an enjoyable, though simpler, fight.

The mainline bosses, the ones required to finish the game, are so well-designed that they could easily be featured as main bosses in another AAA title, and we’d probably give that game a 10/10. And then, of course, there’s the final battle against Sun Wukong himself, which stands as both a narrative and mechanical highlight.

Besides the main bosses, there are numerous side bosses (such as Erlang), each visually and mechanically unique. Even after 30+ hours, there are likely bosses you haven’t faced yet, and they’re worth seeking out.

Even though the base combat may feel stale by the time you reach some of these later bosses, the fights themselves offer new challenges that keep things interesting. And when it comes to boss battles, Black Myth: Wukong doesn’t disappoint.

The Monkey-Wrench in the Works of Black Myth: Wukong

One major issue that’s plagued players since the game’s release is its performance. Even running the game on recommended settings, I noticed frame drops, stuttering, rendering issues, visual bugs, and occasional crashes.

Thankfully, Game Science has started rolling out patches to address these issues. The 1.0.9.15179 update fixed several major problems, and more updates are expected as we move to the future and hopefully get a full DLC for the game. But even on high-end PCs, you may still encounter some technical issues.

This detracts from the overall experience, which is a shame given how visually stunning the game is. While these bugs and performance problems don’t ruin the game, they can dampen the experience, especially during otherwise beautiful moments.

The Game of the Year Contender That Almost Was

Black Myth: Wukong is a visually stunning and fantastically designed retelling of Journey to the West, with expansive and varied gameplay that makes you feel powerful as you battle to revive Sun Wukong and eventually take his place. The bosses are magnificent and numerous, acting as highlights in the game’s semi-open-world chapters, which are filled with plenty to do as you gather resources and grow stronger.

However, the game’s critical flaws — its shallow core combat and notable performance issues — hold it back from reaching true greatness, even game of the year in my opinion. Despite this, Black Myth: Wukong is a bold step forward for the action-adventure genre, setting itself apart from the Souls-like trend in a way that feels both fresh and exciting, and I'm eager to see what Game Science does next.