Pure Xbox’s Craig Reid has spent the last few days at Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, where he had the chance to preview a range of upcoming Xbox releases. Today we share his thoughts on a hands-on demo of Black Myth: Wukong, which takes us into two hours of an early chapter of Game Science’s 2024 ARPG.
For most, the Summer Game Fest came to an end after the Play Days wrapped up on Monday, but not for us! Game Science, the talented developers responsible for the upcoming ARPG Black Myth: Wukongfound time for Pure Xbox the next day, and we’re so glad they did because the game is phenomenal.
Say what you will about SGF’s opening show, but there’s no denying that when the trailer for Black Myth: Wukong dropped, the air left the YouTube Theater and many felt goosebumps. So you can only imagine the anticipation we felt when we headed up to the top floor suite of The Proper Hotel in Downtown LA for a private two-hour hands-on preview of the game.
For those who don’t know, Black Myth: Wukong is inspired by the 16th century Chinese novel “Journey to the West,” considered one of East Asia’s most popular literary works. It’s not the first time the video game industry has been inspired by the shape-shifting Monkey King, Sun Wukong – a notable example being Ninja Theory’s auspicious 2010 release: ‘Enslaved: Odyssey to the West‘.
Our preview started with a look at an extremely detailed peach (you could even see the individual fuzzies) chilling on the forest floor. Before we knew it, the peach revealed itself as our shifty protagonist, Wukong. It only took a few seconds for us to recognize Black Myth: Wukong as an Unreal Engine 5 game, so for the next 1 hour and 59 minutes we knew we were in for a visual feast.
In the demo, Wukong is tasked with climbing the “Black Wind Mountain,” an early chapter of the game, and it’s a location familiar to those familiar with the source material. Our experience with soul-like games (which Black Myth: Wukong is not, but it is a bit – more on this later) is that each location is a character in itself. This is just as important – if not more so – than the charming Yaoguai who live there.
There were three locations we went through during our time with the game. The first was a rich green forest where fallen leaves danced atop reclaimed temple ruins as we pummeled wolf-like beasts with Wukong’s faithful staff. The second housed several larger temples, swampy swamplands and boss encounters, including a huge white wolf Yaoguai with glowing red eyes – taking the whole experience to a spectacular level. The third was the summit of Black Wind Mountain at sunset. Here we were confronted by a gigantic, fire-wielding black bear. No kidding, this writer’s heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his neck as the scene was set for this final confrontation. It’s fair to say that Black Myth: Wukong goes full on bombast at its set locations and doesn’t hold back on the tension either.
Our main weapon throughout the game is the long staff of Wukong: an agile and fast-hitting pole that can slay demons twenty times in a single combo. Wukong is an agile protagonist, opting for quick chain attacks to control his enemies and dodging to avoid enemy attacks. There is no blocking system in Black Myth. Instead, it focuses on perfectly timed dodges to avoid incoming blows. Technically you can block with LB, which instructs Wukong to spin his staff, but this only seemed to deflect certain projectile attacks such as arrows. If a physical blow were to come his way, he would have to dodge, which you get used to quite quickly. We found that the perfect timing was quite generous, almost balancing out the limited defensive options. You can spam ‘X’ for your quick combo, or hold ‘Y’ for a heavy attack. These both come at the expense of endurance… you know, pretty simple stuff.
Things get a little more interesting when it comes to Wukong’s stances as they change his moves. During our demo we managed to test two of the three poses offered. We started in the ‘Smash’ stance: a quick combination of moves that rewards you for being aggressive, building up a focus meter that allows you to perform heavy attacks. The second posture was made available to us when Wukong reached level five. We’d like to think of the ‘Pillar’ attitude as the antagonistic, brutal sh** moveset. In the ‘Pillar’ pose, Wukong sits on top of his staff. If you can hold this position and build up your focus meter, the wand will get longer and longer. and longer. This brings his enemies into range before unleashing a mega ground slam attack, attacking anyone caught under his staff with virtually one tap. ‘Pillar’ was our favorite pose. We found ourselves giggling as we faced enemies safely perched atop our 20-foot long staff, like some kind of immobile, awkward bastard. The third moveset is the ‘Thrust’ stance. It was still quite far out of reach as our time with the game came to an end, only becoming available once we reached level 20. We guess you can blame this on how long we sat on our black iron pillar, like the brave monkey. we are.
Some final notes on combat are the spells and shapeshifting abilities that Black Myth: Wukong offers. Each offers a wide range of strategic options to control the battlefield to your advantage. By progressing through the story or defeating specific enemies, Wukong can learn spells such as the aptly named ‘Immobilize’ spell, which when cast consumes Mana to freeze an enemy in place for a limited time, leaving him open to a barrage of attacks. bang. There’s no definitive number of spells we’re likely to see in the game yet, but there should be quite a few.
Wukong is of course known for his shapeshifting ability. In Black Myth, he uses these transformative abilities to mimic certain special enemies Yaoguai. When we managed to defeat a flame-wielding mini-boss father in this demo, Wukong was able to take over their physical form, weapon, and powerful attack patterns for a limited time. The ability to switch to Yaoguai when things got spicy (or when we felt like taking advantage of an immobilized enemy) varied the combat and elevated the entire experience.
At first glance, you’d think Black Myth: Wukong was a soulish game. There are many similarities with Dark souls. Defeat an enemy? Gaining willpower (souls). Does health need to be supplemented? Drink from your gourd (cobs)… you get the idea. Black Myth: Wukong draws heavily from the genre, but is really more comparable to an action RPG. Game Science opted for a more traditional skill tree instead of tying character skills to weapons and armor. Stands are unlocked by gaining levels and improved by spending earnable sparks on basic skills or stand upgrades. Rather than punishing the player for dying, it also encourages strength and power with a great number of named boss battles. Black Myth definitely feels easier than your traditional soul feel, but strikes a solid balance between that and an action RPG.
There’s a lot more we’d like to say about Black Myth: Wukong, but since the game is still in active development and subject to change, we’d rather wait until the full release before definitively expressing how we feel. And before you ask, even though we shared a room with a handful of developers and PR for Game Science, we were told they wouldn’t be discussing the recent delay of Black Myth: Wukong for Xbox Series X|S. We hope we won’t wait too long because if our two-hour session is indicative of the whole experience, this could potentially be in the running for GOTY – it’s That Good.