After playing upcoming soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers for four hours at a behind-closed-doors preview event in London recently, I’m left genuinely surprised at how much it grew on me over time. While the first hour smacked of that ‘yep, it’s another one of these’ feeling, its winding level design and combat system did eventually open up into a unique and satisfying experience.
Games in the subgenre are a dime a dozen these days, with titles like Lies of P, Lords of the Fallen, Black Myth: Wukong, and the upcoming Nioh 3 all vying to be the next best soulslike game to varying degrees of success.
These games may all be cut from the same cloth, but do offer their own systems, mechanics, and takes on the formula to make them worth playing. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is no different, but it might just be one of the most creative and interesting soulslikes I’ve played in years.
Birds of a feather
Having now played around four hours from the very beginning of the game, I’ll admit things don’t get off to the best start. From the get-go, you’re immediately placed into a pretty lifeless hub area with a small handful of non-player characters (NPCs) with little of interest to say. You’ll pick up that a terrifying disease has ravaged the land, but there’s not much in the way of worldbuilding at this early stage.
It’s only after starting at this hub – a dilapidated temple – that you begin the tutorial segment proper. At first, I was a little thrown off by this, as Wuchang seems to be going against the soulslike grain of having a linear tutorial section first before dropping you into the hub. However, this is only partly the case, as a second larger hub is discovered after beating the first major boss.
Until you reach this point, Wuchang’s level design starts out fairly linearly, but this pseudo-tutorial segment does a decent job of introducing you to the game’s many unique systems. Chiefly, player character Wuchang is infected by a plague known as the Feathering, which also forms the core part of this game’s narrative (at least in the early game).
…the game heavily incentivizes players to manage their Madness levels, which is in itself its own form of organic difficulty.
For most people in the world, the Feathering is an excruciating disease that causes immense pain, bodily disfigurement, and eventually drives one to madness. Wuchang does feel these symptoms, but at a more manageable degree that allows her to still fight.
For Wuchang herself, Madness is a very interesting and multi-layered mechanic. Taking damage, dying, or making use of certain items will increase her Madness gauge. At higher levels, she’ll both deal and take more damage.
For less ambitious soulslikes, a mechanic like that could’ve begun and ended there. Thankfully, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers seems to really explore it in-depth. For example, certain weapon types have unlockable moves and abilities that only activate (or have increased effectiveness) at certain thresholds of Madness, such as 50% or 90%.
As such, the game heavily incentivizes players to manage their Madness levels, which is in itself its own form of organic difficulty. For example, if you’re maxed out on Madness and die, a powerful humanoid demon will spawn the next time you go to pick up your dropped level-up currency, which you can only reclaim by defeating it. It’s tough, but taking it down also brings additional rewards, such as weapon upgrade materials.
Dodge brawl
Overall, I found Madness to be a deeply compelling system in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, if one that takes a few hours to fully wrap your head around. It’s also complemented by the Skyborn Might system, which I thought was equally cool.
Skyborn Might is, essentially, a resource you can accrue and spend on a moment-to-moment basis that enhances the power of your weapon’s unique skills and charged R2/RT attacks. You obtain it by performing a ‘shimmer’, which is just a fancy term for dodging through an enemy attack at the last possible moment.
Together, shimmering and using Skyborn Might-powered abilities form the backbone of Wuchang’s combat system and are crucial to success. If Lies of P is the parrying soulslike, then Wuchang is certainly its dodging counterpart. This notion is further driven home when you realize that not all weapons have a block function by default. And even ones that are able to block don’t negate all forms of damage.
Here’s an example; I found a two-handed axe that produced a parry-like deflect as one of its weapon skills, causing the enemy to momentarily stagger. I later discovered that this only worked against enemies who wielded man-made weapons. A demonic boss later in the demo attacked using its claws, which completely bypassed any attempts to deflect them. As a result, careful dodging and use of Skyborn Might abilities were the way to go.
What this means, in essence, is that you’ll probably want to have two different weapon types equipped at all times. There’s no weight limit in Wuchang, either, meaning you’re free to build your own playstyle without restrictions. Weapons all house their own Skyborn Might skills, and more can be unlocked via the game’s enormous skill tree.
Said skill tree is also where you’ll improve every single aspect of your character. And I do mean everything. From increasing individual stats like health and strength, to healing flask charges, new weapon skills and upgrades, and Madness abilities, it’s all done within this skill tree accessible from Shrine rest points.
I’m in two minds about this. On one hand, it does feel quite restrictive, as making certain weapons more powerful, for example, is tied to their own branches of the skill tree. That means you can occasionally feel like you’re being shoehorned into a particular type of build. On the other hand, it does make you carefully consider where you want to place your points.
And furthermore, you are able to fully respec at any time without cost, so you’re definitely able to experiment on the fly to see which weapons and stat spreads work best for you. I will say that in this case, a skill tree ‘loadout’ function would be very welcome, as I can definitely see myself moving skills around frequently to best suit a particular area or boss encounter.
A positive start
My thoughts so far after four hours with Wuchang: Fallen Feathers have me believing it’s a very competent soulslike, and one that’s pretty deeply challenging. Even in these opening few hours, I lost count of the number of times I perished, though a lot of that was down to exploring dangerous side paths, getting to grips with the Madness system, and encountering some pretty deadly boss fights.
One fought with a flaming spear and set portions of the arena alight, while another was a towering demon that loved to rapidly throw its weight around, leading to devastating damage. Both were vastly different encounters and had me greatly looking forward to the kinds of monstrosities the full game might have to offer.
While the game’s initial linearity did put me off a bit, it does soon open up to have more intricate level design. After you reach that second main hub, there are tons to explore in the level surrounding it, and I felt like I’d only really scratched the surface of what was out there.
I’m really looking forward to playing and reviewing the full game when it releases on July 24, 2025, for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
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