(GTLR) – Black Myth: Wukong is a game that might make you want to break your keyboard or controller within an hour of stepping into its captivating world of gods and monsters. The mesmerizing world of Wukong is as challenging as it is beautiful. The game makes it clear that nothing is achievable without grinding. With a rich storyline, intense characters, and the mischievous Monkey King at its core, it tests both your patience and skill in combat.
No wonder Black Myth: Wukong was one of the most anticipated games – its storyline, captivating characters, and rich cultural influences make it truly outstanding. However, after playing the first six hours, there are certain aspects that, in my opinion, make it feel less exciting. These will be discussed later in the review.
Plot:
Black Myth: Wukong takes us into the world of Sun Wukong, a monkey born from stone with magical powers and supernatural abilities. For reasons unknown, he rebelled against heaven, defeating some of the universe’s most powerful gods before setting his sights on the Buddha. After abandoning the battle, Sun Wukong was imprisoned for 500 years—this is the latter part of the original story. In Black Myth: Wukong, we witness the earlier phase, where the Monkey King loses his battle with the gods and is reincarnated. This is where his journey begins from zero. As you progress, you’ll acquire amazing abilities and powers to face increasingly powerful bosses.
Sun Wukong’s objective is simple: defeat the gods. In essence, Black Myth: Wukong can be described as a boss-focused fighting game. Cinematics are mainly used to introduce these bosses, with the first major one serving as a story introduction before the game plunges into a series of intense boss fights. There are no maps, so you’ll need to memorize locations and shrines, which also serve as rest points and fast-travel locations. The game is designed to focus entirely on your journey to becoming the Monkey King.
What I miss here is the narrative depth, similar to God of War. That series weaves a rich narrative, with strong connections between characters and the father-son journey at its heart. God of War is a story-rich and combat-rich experience. Black Myth: Wukong, on the other hand, leans more into ‘souls-like’ game mechanics. Like Lies of P, Bloodborne, Nioh, Dark Souls, and the recent Elden Ring, the focus is on combat, upgrading, and progression. While I’d love to see more of Sun Wukong’s story, influenced by the rich Chinese culture, music, and mythology, the game leans more toward combat than storytelling, balancing between hack-and-slash mechanics and Wukong’s legendary myth.
Mechanics:
The player’s journey in Black Myth: Wukong is structured from one shrine to another. These shrines serve as refill points and fast-travel locations. When you die, you respawn at the nearest shrine, losing all your loadout at the location where you fell. You must return there to recover everything. The game mechanics limit exploration, with enemies scattered everywhere and some regions patrolled by bosses. It’s up to you whether to engage them. By defeating weaker enemies, you can fill up the XP meter to level up, and after defeating bosses, you’re rewarded with special abilities—though it’s quite tough early on. The game features over 100 bosses, with Yaogui Kings granting super abilities.
One limitation I noticed while playing Black Myth: Wukong is with the staff. Abilities are active only for a limited time, after which you have to rely on your parrying and dodging skills, and the staff itself doesn’t provide long-range attacks. At times, it feels nearly impossible to avoid heavy attacks. I’ve died countless times in boss fights, and it can get frustrating after a while.
In God of War, at least I have a strategy to upgrade myself—armor, weapons, and abilities give me more options in combat. The axe can hit enemies from afar, and there’s the boy who can assist with long-range attacks. But in Black Myth: Wukong, Sun Wukong is alone, with abilities that require mana to use. The developers removed the option to recharge mana during combat—it depletes with superpowers and can only be refilled at shrines. Once your mana is gone, you’re at a major disadvantage. If mana could recharge automatically or through weapon attacks, it would make a huge difference, allowing players to use super abilities multiple times throughout the game. This limitation restricts combat, forcing players to rely heavily on regular attacks, which often leads to repetitive button-mashing – a true test of endurance for your fingers.
Black Myth: Wukong is perfect for those who thrive on challenges. However, if you’ve never ventured into a souls-like universe, you’re in for a rough ride. The game’s world is vast and unforgiving – a god fighting other gods, so there’s nothing easy or basic about it.
Performance:
Black Myth: Wukong is demanding PC hardware. If you’re not equipped with something like an RTX 4080 or RTX 4090, the game struggles to run smoothly. Below is the configuration of the system we used to test the game for several hours. Initially, there were some lags, but subsequent patches addressed most performance issues, so these launch-day hiccups can be overlooked. I managed to get a consistent 80fps during non-combat scenes and around 50-60fps during heavy action sequences. A stable 100fps isn’t achievable, even with everything set to high graphics and RTX-On, but I wanted to experience the game’s best visuals, and thanks to the RTX 4080 Super, it worked well. Otherwise, it would have been a struggle, requiring a lot of optimization, driver updates, and troubleshooting.
On the RTX 4080 Super, I encountered no issues playing Black Myth: Wukong. The gameplay was smooth at the highest possible settings. In short, the game demands a high-end gaming rig to perform well. Without it, you’ll miss out on much of the experience. While there isn’t a lot to explore, the boss fights will look rough on medium or low settings. Be sure to update to the latest Game-Ready drivers to optimize visuals. The RTX 4080 Super handled everything seamlessly, even during fast-paced action scenes. If you have a 4K setup powered by an RTX 4080 or 4090, you’ll enjoy the game’s full potential.
RTX 4080 Super 16GB DLSS 3
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950x
- GPU: GeForce RTX 4080 Super (16GB)
- RAM: 2×16 DDR5 4800MHz (32GB)
- SSD: M.2 PCIe NVMe, SSD (1TB)
- Resolution: 32” LG 4K Gaming Monitor
Verdict:
No doubt, Black Myth: Wukong is an incredible game. What I found lacking, however, is a deeper storyline that would allow for more meaningful connections between characters. It’s a beautifully crafted game, but its primary focus is on combat. Game Science invested a lot of time perfecting the combat system and actively fixed bugs related to gameplay. You should definitely have Black Myth: Wukong in your game library. It offers around 30 hours of main gameplay if you focus solely on the bosses, but you can extend that by exploring side content. While playing, you need to be strategic with your abilities and upgrades. Each boss has a unique fighting style, so dying a few times at the start is inevitable.
The game begins with an epic introduction to the Chinese gods, who descend from heaven to confront the Monkey King. This makes Sun Wukong feel like more than just a regular character. To preserve this aura, the developers stayed authentic to the mythology, which adds to the game’s initial difficulty. Even though it’s outside the game’s scope, I can’t help but wish there was co-op gameplay in Black Myth: Wukong – it would’ve made the journey a bit easier.
