Summary

• Boss fights in Black Myth: Wukong shine, but the gap between boss fights and the level design is significant.
• Some levels feel repetitive with predictable enemy placements, even when hidden paths shake things up.
• While Black Myth: Wukong's high points are strong, improving level design could elevate the overall experience.

hybrid between a soulslike, boss rush, and traditional action game, Black Myth: Wukong spares no expense when it comes to the presentation of its big moments. Although some later fights can come with intense difficulty spikes, bosses tend to be a joy to play, with unique movesets and fluid attack animations making even the most frustrating encounters feel satisfying.

If Black Myth: Wukong was nothing more than a boss rush, it would still be a reasonably satisfying experience, and some parts of Chapter 1 feel like the game is leaning in that direction. As it progresses, however, it becomes clear that a significant amount of the runtime is still spent on standard level traversal, with plenty of minor enemies to fight and occasional secrets to uncover. Some segments still feature numerous bosses in short succession, but others tip the scales in the other direction, especially when exploring alternate paths and looking for hidden areas and treasures.

Black Myth: Wukong's Levels Don't Match Its Boss Fights

Brilliant Heights Are Mixed With Pedestrian Design

Black Myth: Wukong's levels are often perfectly pleasant to play through, but when looking at them side-by-side with the boss fights, it's hard to argue that there's much comparison. In its frequent climactic encounters, the game is punching well above most of the competition, and there's definitely an argument to make that the lineup is more consistent than the bosses that some great titles like Elden Ring bring to the table. Outside of them, however, a lot of the level design feels like something taken out of a able but forgettable game.

That's not to say that the levels aren't capable of impressing, as they certainly have their strong points. Gorgeous environmental detail and a plethora of bespoke enemy designs and animations are wonderful touches, and some stretches are tightly designed. Others, however, can feel like repetitive marches through long corridors of mostly predictable enemy placements. Boss fights in Black Myth: Wukong incentivize players to keep going through the tantalizing tug of mastery, while levels often rely on little more than inertia.

One major example of this problem is Chapter 3, which has some highlights but drags things out with barren stretches of uninteresting fodder enemies.

Levels are also let down by an over-reliance on invisible walls, which can often be found in areas that look like they could reasonably be traversed. Black Myth: Wukong doesn't employ any very consistent standards of logic about which rock formations might be traversable and which ones aren't, so anyone who wants to find every alternate pathway and hidden secret will inevitably find themselves up against plenty of invisible walls over the course of the game. In a world so undeniably gorgeous, it's a shame to have the immersion broken through such a rudimentary design limitation.

Black Myth: Wukong Could Be Even Better

Great Level Design Would Elevate The Experience

Although Black Myth: Wukong isn't exactly a soulslike, it's hard not to compare its lower points to the areas in games from Dark Souls developer FromSoft, which tend to be just as interesting as the boss fights that accompany them. There's nothing wrong with Black Myth: Wukong choosing to avoid the Castlevania-like gauntlets found in Dark Souls, as easier traversal can provide appreciable downtime between bosses. Sekiro already provided a better example of how to load the difficulty on the bosses while keeping the rest of the game entertaining, however, to say nothing of action games from other studios.

A game doesn't necessarily need to be firing on all cylinders to provide a great time, and the high points of Black Myth: Wukong are more than enough to carry it. It's hard not to imagine how cool a game that punched up the level design to match the fantastic bosses could be, however, and seeing developer GameScience take that path in the future would be a dream. Boss fights in Black Myth: Wukong outshine a lot of what other games have to offer, but they also end up highlighting how weak other elements of the experience are by comparison.

Editor's Note: The studio behind Black Myth: Wukong, GameScience, has previously been accused of fostering a toxic environment for its workers. The 2023 allegations include sexualized comments against women, misogyny, fatphobia, and more. More details can be found here.