Impressions – Black Myth: Wukong is a beautiful if slightly boring boss rush

Black Myth: Wukong reminds us of a next-generation launch game. It’s utterly gorgeous and technically mighty, but its gameplay and narrative leave quite a bit to be desired.

The game, the first console effort from Game Science, is a retelling of the 16th centry Chinese novel Journey to the West. Players fight their way across a land that combines high-east Asian fantasy and realism.

Each of the game’s chapters is utterly teeming with bosses, and it’s up to the player’s character, Sun Wukong to take them down. We’ve played through three of the game’s five chapters, clocking in around 11 hours with the action title.

The game opens strongly with an incredible (and graphics card testing) battle above the clouds, before Sun Wukong is sent crashing down to earth, to regain his powers and save the world.

Black Myth: Wukong presents initially as almost Souls-like in its gameplay, but as you progress further it becomes clear that despite nods in FromSoftware‘s direction, Black Myth: Wukong is far more of a traditional action game.

The game’s lush levels are usually wheel-and-spoke design, in which one central area will lead off down a few paths leading to bosses. Beat all the bosses, interact with the gimmick of that area, and head off to the main boss of that section.

This isn’t an open world, then. We actually wonder if an open world will this level of graphical might would be possible.

There are smaller enemies in the areas between bosses, but they serve very little purpose other than to work out a few combos before the big battles. We actually think this is a bit of a shame because it means that these incredible-looking areas are quickly forgotten about as you’re led toward boss after boss.

There are also collectibles and items to be found, but they’ve been of very little consequence in our journey thus far.

This game really stands or falls on the strength of its bosses, and so far, it’s a mixed bag. There are some extremely challenging, visually interesting fights, such as the second chapter’s stand-off with a sword-wielding tiger, but the game’s relative lack of difficulty, even over halfway through, means that you’re spending very little time with them.

Sun Wukong is just too strong, too quickly. The first ability you learn allows you to freeze enemies. This is incredibly overpowered, and if you’re at all familiar with being able tell when a boss is about to attack, you can essentially lock them in a never-ending loop. You also get so many upgrade points that you never feel like there’s a wall to be climbed, you’re smashing through them as violently as possible.

We didn’t die until late into the game’s second chapter. We’re not saying that games like this need to be some kind of hard-as-nails grind, but we were very surprised by just how slow the ramp-up in difficulty is. It makes bosses, which look great and are often accompanied by interesting attack mechanics, very boring due to how quickly we steam-rolled them.

What can’t be denied is how impressive the game is visually. We were playing the game using a top-of-the-range PC with a RTX 4090 and it’s easily in the conversation for one of the most visually impressive games ever. We don’t think there’s a PC in the world that will crank it up all the way and still achieve 60FPS, but we got pretty close, with only a few dips in some visually-intense areas.

Honestly, the impressive visuals and character designs are the reasons we’re keen to go back and keep playing, more than the gameplay itself. The combat is serviceable hack-and slash, and while it’s well animated, there’s a lack of weight and precision to hits that’s disappointing.

The various stances do make for some interesting combat variety, however. For example, one stance sees Sun Wukong balance at the top of his staff, which makes him invulnerable to ground attacks.

The issue, again, is that we have very little motivation to actually use the different stances since we’re doing so much damage with the standard attacks and the ability to freeze characters. The game’s mechanic which lets you absorb the spirits of certain bosses then either transform into them, or use powers based on theirs, is cool, but feels somewhat underexplored.

Black Myth: Wukong is a solid first console effort from Game Science, but we’re not in love with the game’s combat. It’s a technical marvel that we’re probably going to see through to the end, but we’re underwhelmed with the lack of difficulty, and the lack of reason to really explore the game’s semi-open levels.