Thursday July 24 - Added comment from developer Leenzee Games and publisher 505 Games.
Stylish soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is already soaring up the Steam charts, but it's also the latest game to suffer a major user-score blowback amid performance problems. The action RPG wraps itself around Chinese mythology, following the likes of Black Myth: Wukong and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, but turns its focus instead to the Great Plague of the late Ming dynasty. While the gameplay and world are winning hearts, optimization issues have seen it fall foul of the same 'overwhelmigly negative' fate as Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is likely to find itself on our list of the best soulslikes very soon; Nat hailed it as a "gold standard" for the genre, proving that there's more innovation to be had in the now well-worn format. In particular, her 8/10 Wuchang: Fallen Feathers review highlights the "masterful level design" and boss fights that place smart play over pure reactions. Unfortunately, Nat also remarks that "Unreal Engine 5 is the fly in the upscaled ointment of modern game design."
During Nat's playthrough, she remarks that "My heart-in-throat confrontation with Commander Honglan is beset by stop-motion intervals that have me missing dodge windows and counters," and that an inconsistent framerate puts a serious dampener on Wuchang's beautiful world. It's a problem that seems to be plaguing many, with a need for aggressive use of upscaling tools, either Nvidia DLSS or AMD FSR, which were likely implemented as a way to keep the Wuchang: Fallen Feathers system requirements low.
In its first day, Wuchang managed to reach an impressive peak player count of over 114,000 active users on Steam, an especially notable feat given its availability via PC Game Pass, but the responses have been largely downbeat. At the time of writing, the more than 4,000 Wuchang Steam reviews sit at just 19% positive, granting it an 'overwhelmingly negative' rating on Valve's store. Among the complaints, the performance issues are by far the majority. Even members of the PCGamesN team who are running just about the best gaming PC you can buy today are falling foul of hitching in specific areas.
Even one player who leaves a positive review remarks, "The game performance is atrocious. The screen tearing makes me feel really dizzy and causes headaches." Others say they spent more than half an hour trying to land on the best Wuchang: Fallen Feathers settings, only to find that they still weren't able to avoid problems entirely. One other minor complaint is that, while control rebinding is available, there's no way to swap out your preferred main 'use' key, which has posed problems for some looking to make accessibility changes.
Developer Leenzee has yet to respond to the criticisms. Hopefully it's something that the studio is able to work on moving forward, because Wuchang shows a lot of promise. I'm certainly eager to start my own playthrough, but I might have to wait a little while before doing so.
Update: In a new statement, Leenzee and 505 Games extend "most sincere thanks to everyone who supports and follow our game." The developer says, "We deeply regret the inconvenience and negative experience some players are currently facing. we are confident in the game's performance with our recommended spec but we're working on optimization. We are looking to issue a patch as soon as we can."
It adds that the team is aware of pricing anomalies in some regions, and that it is working to fix these. As for players missing pre-order rewards, the issue will be fixed in an upcoming patch. To compensate, all players who buy the game on Steam will get a free digital copy of the soundtrack, with refunds for those who have already bought it, and Deluxe Edition purchasers will get a "brand-new exclusive costume" in the future.
If you're already playing, we've prepared the best Wuchang: Fallen Feathers builds to get you started on the right foot, along with an explanation of how the Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Madness system works.
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