Before we talk about Black Myth: Wukong, let’s take a quick look at the story that inspired it - "Journey to the West" a Chinese novel from the 16th century, I believe it's a good story to know before you start the game. The book is about a monk named Tang Sanzang (also called Tripitaka). He travels from China to India to collect important Buddhist scriptures.

He’s not alone, three special characters join him:

• Sun Wukong, the rebellious Monkey King with magical powers
• Zhu Bajie, a pig spirit who loves to eat but has a kind heart
• Sha Wujing, a quiet river monster who wants to become a better person

Together, they go through 81 difficult challenges when they fight demons, mythical beasts and also deal with their own personal flaws, each character shows a different side of human nature. Their journey is not only about action, but also about learning and growing.

Now, let’s focus on Sun Wukong.

Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, was born from a magical stone on Flower Fruit Mountain. He learned powerful abilities like cloud-riding and shape-shifting, and fought with a magical staff, at one point, Wukong was invited to Heaven, but he was given a small job, taking care of the horses. He felt insulted and wanted more respect. So, he got angry, called himself “The Great Sage Equal to Heaven,” and started fighting against the gods. He caused chaos in Heaven until Buddha stopped him and trapped him under a mountain for 500 years and was later freed by the monk Tang Sanzang, joining him on a journey to India to protect him. And that's the original story in short.

Now finally we can move to Black Myth: Wukong, in the game you don't actually play as the original Sun Wukong, instead you play as The Destined One a monkey warrior who seems to be connected to Wukong's legacy. Wukong’s spirit was split into relics, and you, as The Destined One are believed to be the key to bringing him back. Your goal is to recover the other relics and help restore the Monkey King’s power... but what if there’s more to it than just bringing him back? The story imagines what happens after the Monkey King has already achieved enlightenment.

At the very start of Black Myth: Wukong, you briefly play as Sun Wukong, fighting against Erlang Shen, a powerful god, it acts as a kind of tutorial and shows how the story begins before you fully step into the real journey, fighting from start feels pretty smooth and good, I totally loved it! After finishing the “tutorial,” you finally play as The Destined One, and this is where the real game begins. The game offers three combat stances: Smash Stance, Pillar Stance and Thrust Stance, game has a Focus System, and each stance uses focus points to power up heavy attacks, you can charge them by holding "Y", using light attacks or perfectly dodging. Personally i used Smash Stance most of the time, it fit my style best, felt fast and was really comfortable, used Pillar Stance only for one boss, and never touched it again, and Thrust Stance a bit in the late game when I had a weapon built for it. Dodging is really important for the game, there is no parry system at all, you can only dodge, and perfect dodges matter especially to charge your Stances, and honestly, it's fun dodging and jumping around like a monkey, it's such enjoyable and smooth system, and I would recommend to play with a controller. It's not a hard game overall, but some bosses are definitely more challenging than others, so you might end up spending a decent amount of time learning their mechanics. I had a few moments where I kept retrying a boss for 20–30 minutes, but it never felt unfair, just a matter of timing and patience.

At the beginning the story didn't seem that interesting to me, but it started to grow on me with time. Visually the game is beautiful, but it's also demanding, if you are on mid-range PC like me, using the High/Medium preset with DLSS on quality mode offers the best balance between visuals and performance.

I would recommend the game for sure, it might not be the most challenging game, but it’s fun, the combat feels great, and the story turns out to be surprisingly good once it gets going, each chapter offers something new.

⚠️ And one more thing, if you are achievement hunter you will need to play the game more than once, some achievements are missable, and it's impossible to unlock all of them in a single playthrough.

Minimum:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 130 GB available space
• Sound Card: Windows Compatible Audio Device
• Additional Notes: HDD Supported, SSD Recommended. The above specifications were tested with DLSS/FSR/XeSS enabled.

Recommended:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i7-9700 / AMD Ryzen 5 5500
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / INTEL Arc A750
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 130 GB available space
• Sound Card: Windows Compatible Audio Device
• Additional Notes: SSD Required. The above specifications were tested with DLSS/FSR/XeSS enabled.