Black Myth: Wukong – A Joyful Departure from Grim Soulslikes

It’s 2026, and I still find myself returning to the vibrant, eccentric world of Black Myth: Wukong. Tony the Tiger studying the blade only to carve me into a jack-o’-lantern? I couldn’t even be mad — I was too busy laughing and admiring the sheer audacity. This game throws the entire zoo at you with bloodlust, but it does so with a wink and a grin that makes even the most punishing moments feel like part of a grand, mischievous prank. While many called it a soulslike back in 2024, that label has always felt like a disservice. Black Myth: Wukong is an adventure that borrows structure from FromSoftware’s masterpieces but sculpts it into something playful, expressive, and teeming with folklore.

At its heart is a retelling of the classic Journey to the West, but you don’t need to have read the original to appreciate the talking animals with health bars. The opening act sets the tone perfectly: the legendary Sun Wukong laughs in the face of a celestial council, gets smacked down so hard he spends centuries reincarnating, and you wake up as a level-one monkey ready to reclaim your legacy. From there, you wander through forests of wolf-men, deserts haunted by shield-bearing hedgehogs, and frozen lakes where a serpentine dragon clamps you in its teeth. Every level is a series of bizarre vignettes that crash-land into a seemingly straightforward quest, and I loved every minute of not knowing what weird creature I’d meet next.

One of the things that sets Wukong apart is how gently it nudges you into exploration. The early hours are linear, almost a highway of wolf-bonking, but soon the world opens up with side paths and secrets. I’ll never forget stumbling across a man turned to stone begging for help, only to have him laugh at my gullibility when I returned with the requested item. That classic 16th-century trick rewarded me with a spell that lets me parry attacks by turning to stone — a perfect example of how Wukong makes you feel clever rather than punished.

Combat is where the magic truly shines. You don’t swap between dozens of weapons; your staff is your constant companion. What you do swap are spirits collected from special enemies, each granting passive buffs and a signature attack. One moment you’re morphing your head into a gigantic hammer, the next you’re transforming into a fire-wielding wolf with a flaming polearm. I approached every fight like a dance of cartwheels, somersaults, and puffs of smoke, cycling through spells like Immobilize to freeze enemies mid-swing and then retaliating with a spirit strike that made me feel like a magician. The skill tree is flexible enough that at any shrine — Wukong’s version of a bonfire — I could reallocate points to completely shift my build. There’s even a spell that creates a posse of clones to punch an evil pile of rocks back into the ground. If that’s not joy, I don’t know what is.

The sheer number of boss fights might sound intimidating, but the difficulty curve is gloriously uneven. You might steamroll an oversized rat and then find yourself fully locked-in against a raging bear. Wukong celebrates spectacle over sadism. Even the toughest chapter-ending mirror bosses of Elden Ring can be approached with patience and dodging, and checkpoints are never more than 30 seconds away. I never hit a brick wall I couldn’t overcome by tweaking my spells or collecting a few extra spirits. Those who avoid the mimic tear in other games might opt to fight without some abilities, but they’d be robbing themselves of the most satisfying tactical layers.

Of course, no launch is perfect. Back in 2024, the game suffered from shader compilation stutters and crashes that tanked performance even on an RTX 4090. Two years and several patches later, the experience is buttery smooth for most systems. The frame rate issues that once muddied its gorgeous, sunbaked deserts and glowing-leaf forests are largely a memory. I can finally soak in the dense detail without swapping video settings mid-battle. The stop-motion parable that rewards you after one chapter — a man saving an injured wolf — is still one of the most striking animations I’ve seen in a game, and it now runs flawlessly.

Beyond the technical polish, what keeps me coming back is the sheer creativity. Wukong is an action RPG that loves its world and characters so earnestly that you can’t help but love them too. In a genre full of fallen kings and sad dragons, it’s a breath of fresh air to play something that embraces weird little creatures, playful quests, and the philosophy that the best solution to a grueling fight is to use as many fun abilities as possible. It may lack the scale and build complexity of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, but it reaches similar emotional highs in a wildly different direction. If Black Myth: Wukong is forced to wear the soulslike label, then we need a new definition — because there’s nothing else quite like it.