Black Myth: Wukong Review

Game Science's 2024 action game is built on Journey to the West, and it assumes you either know the source or are willing to be confused for a while. Combat is a staff with three stances - smash, pillar and thrust - each with its own charge mechanic, plus four spell slots holding transformations, freezes and clones, and the whole thing is more aggressive than a Souls game and less forgiving than a character-action one. Bosses are the content: over eighty of them, many optional, and the best are multi-phase set pieces with animation work that outclasses studios ten times the size. The level design is a set of large corridors rather than an open world, and it hides an enormous amount, including a secret chapter most players never see. Chapter four in particular is one of the best-directed stretches in a recent action game. It sold over twenty million copies, mostly in China, and effectively announced Chinese AAA development as a category.