Black Myth: Wukong Final Boss & Ending Explained (In Detail)

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Black Myth: Wukong.]

's story can be confusing right up to the very end. It's a reimagined version of the 16th-century Chinese novel, which follows a ragtag group of misfits who escort the monk Tan Sanzang to the Buddhist heartlands in order to retrieve a series of sacred texts. picks up long after simian protagonist Sun Wukong has completed his journey and become a Buddha. He rejects his newfound status and returns to the mountain of his birth. Sun Wukong duels the god Erlang, who would force his return to the Celestial Court, and is once again sealed in a stone as punishment.

In, players control one of his monkey subjects, known as the Destined One and charged with recovering Wukong's lost Relics, which are spread throughout the world. After finding five of the six, and also tracking down Wukong's arms and armor, the Destined One returns to their home of Mount Huaguo to discover the sixth and final Relic and meet their destiny. There are two endings to , both of which depend entirely on whether the player completes an optional boss fight, and each of which has great implications for the game's mytho-historical setting.

Despite the exceptional qualities of Black Myth: Wukong, the souls-like RPG has some necessary improvements to make, for a truly immersive experience.

As the Destined One returns to Mount Huaguo, the Old Monkey explains two important points of his journey: one, that five of the Relics each represented one of Sun Wukong's senses, and the sixth, his mind; and two, that the Destined One is to become a vessel for Wukong's reincarnation. On the horizon, they see the wizened, hardened body of a monkey bent in meditation.

The Old Monkey explains that this is the shell of Sun Wukong, and that the Destined One will need to defeat his body and inherit his soul in order to become his successor, after which the journey will begin anew. The implication here seems to be that, in the world of, there is no one Monkey