Black Myth Wukong Review: Easy now, Destined One

A Soulslike… but not.

Black Myth Wukong is the latest retelling of the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West, this time developed by locals at the China-based (slightly problematic, allegedly sexist) GameScience.

As is seemingly standard nowadays, it has planted its roots firmly within the Soulslike genre. That said, if you’re not a tremendous fan of games like Dark Souls, Elden Ring, or the recent Lies of P, don’t let that dissuade you – Black Myth Wukong is one of the easiest Soulslike games to date.

Here, you play as the Destined One, a monkey armed with a lethal staff and – as you progress – the full powerset of the Monkey King. While a prologue shows you the full range of the abilities at your disposal – including the ability to clone copies of yourself, a cloud strike, and ability to freeze an opponent in time – those all are naturally stripped from you as you work towards reaching your former glory.

As you truly begin, the Destined One relies upon a light and heavy attack, coupled with a spritely dodge. These, in turn, rely upon stamina to pull off successfully; run out of that and you’ll become sluggish. Low on stamina? Simple. Stop moving for a bit.

Also tied to stamina is focus, a function that I primarily used for chaining a powerful, generally unblockable heavy attack onto my light attack combo. You earn focus points by performing light attacks on enemies, banking focus points in the process.

Little by little – either through story-based MacGuffins or after dispatching mini-bosses – you’ll power up with special moves or even transformations that make battles easier. Those, of course, are fuelled by mana.

Finally – and quite obviously – the Destined One has a health meter that can be reupped by taking a swig of some handy, finite brew. As with other Soulslikes, your health, mana, and brew are all replenished by finding and using shrines that are dotted about the landscape. Naturally, using a shrine respawns minor enemies found around you.

The Destined One levels up through a combination of will and sparks, the latter earned when enough will is in your possession. Abilities are powered up through those sparks across several skill and talent trees.

Upon your death, you’ll lose a very small amount of will – an item that cannot be recovered from your last place of death, unlike most Soulslikes – though sparks that you’ve earned remain safely banked. It’s this point of difference that sets Black Myth Wukong from other entries in the genre, and it’s here that problems arise.

I started Chapter 1 of Black Myth Wukong the same way I do other Soulslikes: getting in random fights with cannon fodder to not only see how tough they are, but how much damage a strike will cause me. Those efforts are bolstered by general exploration to see how I can best level myself up before a large boss.

The first main area of Black Myth Wukong is sparse, populated with a few low-level enemies, one mini-boss, and one major boss. I assumed – and I now believe, incorrectly – that I needed to take on the mini-boss to gain enough will and sparks to take on the main baddie. I never could.

A mere child, I kept dying to the mini-boss but noticing my own improvement each and every time. I kept defeating the same four or five lackies in the area, and very quickly found myself awash with sparks. Again, on the off chance that I died before even fighting the mini-boss, it didn’t matter – each kill on the way was earning me XP and the penalties were so non-existent each run proved to be of great value.

When I finally defeated the mini-boss – a large, lumbering Buddha-like creature that also gave me the ability to transform into it so I could deliver a punishing headbutt to an opponent – I thought I’d then have to rally a bit in my quest to take on the main boss.

How wrong I was.

A few levels in, and I destroyed the main boss. On the first try, and barely using any healing. I was frankly shocked at how easy it was (and this is coming from an Elden Ring player who needed to resort to a lot of cheesing and a lot of co-op or ally spawning).

I hit up a nearby shrine and proceeded down a very linear path thinking I’d be able to explore some more before running up to another mini-boss (which I defeated in one go), and another boss (same there, too). As I continued, I noticed that was the basic formula of Black Myth Wukong: run a short distance, (maybe) take on some cannon fodder, open a door, fight a boss, repeat.

Apart from the very opening of the game, I’ve never found myself needing to respawn fodder to try to grind out some much-needed levels before continuing on.

While environments are gorgeous and detailed, there isn’t much going on within them. One area practically forces you to explore the environment to be able to jump up onto roofs to dispatch enemies, while others have invisible walls that prevent you from going places you think you should be able to access.

I’ve taken on so many bosses that I have blended them all together in my mind. You always remember your first – thanks, big-head Buddha – and only two others have really stuck with me: a floaty Tiger-man who kept tricking me into using my dodge far too early, and a wind sage that spawned some big skeleton to drop on me that also caused my PC framerates to plummet.

Those three enemies that I can remember also happen to be some of the very few that made me repeat a fight, and that’s likely why I can remember them at all. All other bosses – and engagements – are so repetitious they’re almost immediately forgotten. 

I’ve used the term “Soulslike” frequently here, and I believe it’s still more accurate than likening Black Myth Wukong to something in the vein of God of War Ragnarok. While you have the freedom to fast travel to different places within the world, GameScience’s title is far more linear and lacking a true sense of exploration. I’d imagine that’s because Black Myth Wukong is extremely story-driven, and GameScience isn’t as adept at weaving in a narrative as the veterans over at Sony Santa Monica.

While it’s true that Black Myth Wukong’s mini-bosses are objectively similar to God of War’s Valkyries, the latter are the core of some of the game’s most difficult – and therefore, rewarding – experiences. In this title, they’re merely extra content, relatively easily dispatched and sometimes just standing in the way between you and the next big boss.

While everything I’ve stated above seems pretty damning, it isn’t meant to be. I can’t stress enough how enjoyable Black Myth Wukong is when looking at it through the correct lens. Frankly, I’m amazed that a team that’s worked primarily on mobile titles has been able to create something as gorgeous as this on PC and PS5.

I experienced a couple points of stutter on my PC (with an Intel Core i7-9700KF Processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER GPU), but nothing that was too egregious. This appears to have improved somewhat thanks to an 8GB patch that GameScience hasn’t detailed.

I was curious to see how the title will perform on PS5, but sadly, review codes were not available to press at the time of writing.

The bottom line is this: adjust your expectations about Black Myth Wukong as a proper Soulslike, and jump on in if its setting and mythos interests you.

Black Myth Wukong heads to Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store alongside PS5 on 20 August.

Black Myth Wukong was reviewed using a promotional code on Windows PC via Steam, as provided by the developer. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.

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