Being a completionist, I tend to take a lot of time to play games such as Black Myth: Wukong (2024). I obsessively explore every corner of the map, and if there are collectibles, I generally do everything I can to find them before I move to the next area. I defeated BMWK’s final boss after roughly seventy hours of gameplay. Still, if you are trying to gauge your potential playtime, this is undoubtedly longer than the playtime for the average player, especially those familiar with souls-likes.

Overall, the final chapter of BMWK is good, even if it’s the shortest. I will do my best to avoid spoilers when talking about the contents of the final area, but I will touch upon everything, good and bad, that stood out to me as I finished this perplexing game. I intentionally use perplexing here since explaining how this game interacts with its audience relies heavily on the player’s knowledge of the source material, which is largely unknown to Western audiences. If you are familiar with the original myths, you will probably have a great time linking your inside knowledge to the carefully crafted characters and their interactions.

If you are completely unfamiliar with the source material, like me, you will probably feel confused, lost, and empty while looking for anything to attach yourself to. The story of Sun Wukong is so woven through the game that it enhances and diminishes the player's experience. This is my most significant criticism of BMWK. It is a game that seeks to exploit the inside knowledge of the player, specifically Chinese players, to its detriment on a world stage.

The way that every aspect of the game is so exquisitely crafted and rendered tells me that the developers at Game Science are masters of their craft and care deeply about this story. If there were individual awards for graphics and characterization, they should no doubt win them all. But, even after seventy hours in this world, I could never shake the feeling that no matter how breathtaking any given vista or boss fight was or how every object in the game was exquisitely crafted, I came away from BMWK feeling empty, like I was an outsider looking in. Nowhere does this feeling of emptiness play out worse than in the game’s last chapter.

Chapter 6 does little to illuminate the narrative and only leads to more questions. This chapter is a series of boss fights that allow you to collect the necessary gear for a final showdown, and that is pretty much it. There is no resolution to the conflict that the game started with and no single antagonist if you do not count the Destined One himself. The boss fights are great, and BMWK delivers those “Holy Shit” moments I have come to expect, but there is just no attachment or discernable meaning behind any of it. You will do yourself a service by finding a copy of Journey to the West and starting to read it before attempting to play this game.

In Chapter 6, I received a cloud to ride around on, but I was immediately disappointed to find that it was not usable in other areas. I was excited to use the cloud to explore the new location, but after about ten minutes of flying around, the emptiness of BMWK world design returned. The final area is beautiful and verdant, but so many empty regions made flying on my new cloud seem like a time-wasting chore. I immediately started to crave the on-rails experience of the preceding chapter.

Before I close out this set of playthrough notes, I want to caveat the criticism I have levied at BMWK by saying that, despite any frustrations, this is an incredible game. There is much to love here, and I look forward to writing about them in the review. I believe that BMWK is a strong contender for becoming a classic in the action genre, and most likely, it will win Game of the Year if nothing else rises to challenge it. I can’t shake this feeling that this was a lost opportunity to introduce a fantastic piece of storytelling to a broader audience by, I don’t know, telling a story. BMWK would be much better served if I could stand on its own as a retelling of the source material rather than referencing it.

To summarize, BMWK is a great game. You should play it, and I look forward to the coming DLCs and sequels. See you in the review.