Black Myth: Wukong is a perfect chaser for Stellar Blade fans

This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

When I sat down to try Black Myth: Wukong at Summer Game Fest, I began asking the person leading the demo questions about the gameplay to get myself situated. What is the resource for leveling up my stats? Would I drop currency when I die? Could I parry attacks? I went in assuming it was your standard Soulslike, just with a more fantastical premise. After getting a few surprising answers, the demo runner noted that the developers didn’t exactly want it to be viewed as a Soulslike — they prefer to just call it an action RPG.

That made total sense by the end of my demo. While Black Myth: Wukong does include lots of elements you’d expect from a game like Dark Souls, parts of it are much more in line with traditional action games. That makes for a happy medium between subgenres that’ll resonate with players who want more games like this year’s Stellar Blade.

Fast and furious

My demo begins early in Black Myth: Wukong’s first chapter. I’m tossed into a thick jungle that’s mostly linear, but has a few branching paths that lead to secrets. I get the basics of combat down quickly when I find some weak enemies and thwack them with my staff. The first thing that stands out is how quick my attacks are. While I do have a slow heavy attack that can punish me for overcommitting, my light attacks let me pepper foes with lots of little hits in rapid succession.

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I get the sense that developer Game Science always wants players to stay on the attack rather than hiding and hitting enemies with a safe poke here and there. That flow is reinforced by the fact that there’s no block or parry system here. I can roll to evade attacks, and the window for dodging seems generous, but that’s all I have for defense. It’s a little hard to get