Right, to the point. This game needs a map and I am going to see if I can find a mod that does so. The world is absolutely beautiful, something I have rarely experienced. It does a fantastic job of providing atmosphere. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is so damn good, that just like in real life, I get lost in a forest that looks the same everywhere I turn. I do enjoy the exploration, but this is not a linear game and the multiple paths interconnect at various points, making it easy to get disoriented, and frustrating to find your bearing. Here I am reminded of manually drawing the EverQuest maps and printing them out in a binder…

And that’s about it in terms of issues.

Sure, the game is hard as nails in some spots, and you need borderline twitch reflexes to get through some bosses. The mechanics behind some skills/stats is not obvious, and potions become pretty much mandatory for bosses from the midpoint on. There’s great spell variety, and the ability to easily re-spec is amazing as some work much better than others depending on circumstances. There’s oodles of enemy variety, multiple methods to get through it. The distance between save points is (with 1 exception) entirely reasonable. The early part of Chapter 3 (the Pagoda) is the stuff of nightmares due to being knocked to your death continuously, but the other zones are a solid mix of exploration & risks. Enemy variety is extremely high, which is frankly amazing to see.

Bosses are generally on a progressive curve, secret bosses aside. If you find the first optional boss (Wandering Wight) hard, then it’s going to be a pain train all the way through. The game dramatically rewards aggressive play, and generally provides enough options to mitigate damage. It isn’t perfectly balanced, but what game truly is?

I’ve encountered a few game-breaking bugs, but less than I had expected. A few system crashes, one boss that was 100% invisible, and another that had frame skipping making it a nightmare to manage. At no point did I feel like I lost hours of work, as the checkpoint system is extremely generous, and death has no penalties aside from a short run back to where you were.

So far, Wukong is a very strange game to release in 2024. This is clearly not an indie endeavor, the production and sheer size of it all show that. It’s also not what the west would instinctively consider a AAA game, as the depth & complexity isn’t there. I’m sure there’s 30hrs of play in here if not more, with over 90 bosses to fight, which is absolutely a good number (Elden Ring has nearly 250). But compared to something like Suicide Squad, or Concord, or a myriad of other AAA games that have absolutely bombed and led to job cuts, this game is truly astounding. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that Star Wars Outlaws is a success, and truly makes me question where the industry is going. Maybe, just maybe, there’s some hope for the games industry if games like Wukong can be successful.