Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – Solid soulslike experience

If you enjoy independent indie game coverage, consider supporting Indie-Games.eu on Patreon. It helps keep the site independent.

• DEVELOPER: Leenzee Games
• PUBLISHER: 505 Games
• PLATFORMS: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• GENRE: Soulslike
• RELEASE DATE: July 24, 2025
• STARTING PRICE: 49,99€
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a new Soulslike action RPG set in a dark fantasy version of the late Chinese Ming Dynasty. You play as Bai Wuchang, a pirate suffering from amnesia and a mysterious illness called “The Feathering,” which slowly turns people into monsters. The narrative part of the game is told in a typical Soulslike manner, with information slowly trickled through environmental storytelling, item descriptions, and scarce cutscenes. Our protagonist soon realizes that in her search for a cure, she will have to defeat various bosses and enemies, while upgrading her skills and utilizing magic.

A Beautifully Interconnected World

Without a doubt, Wuchang looks gorgeous. The game is brimming with colors and dark areas, various monstrosities, beautiful buildings, and a truly expansive, interconnected world that seamlessly flows from one place to another. For example, there are special shortcuts that connect one area to another, opening up more paths.

There are also plenty of NPCs and characters you’ll meet along the way to buy various items and gain a better understanding of the world’s state. A good thing is that you can teleport between various points. There are also various shortcuts to quickly reach bosses, as well as hidden chests and items to discover, making exploration extremely useful in this game.

“What’s already obvious and widely known is that Wuchang, as a protagonist, is quite attractive.”

However, until the game was recently patched, it had its technical and graphical difficulties. The visuals, unfortunately, are still not perfectly smooth; the overall texture quality is insufficient, leading to occasional stutters due to poor optimization. Combat isn’t always responsive and precise due to delayed animations; once you swing your sword, you have to wait for the animation to finish before you can roll or block an attack. Still, bosses have their own stutters, giving you a bit more time to react at certain moments.

What’s already obvious and widely known is that Wuchang, as a protagonist, is quite attractive. This approach has simply become normal for games from Asia, but it’s not overly forced. You collect various armors and costumes as you play, so ultimately, her appearance isn’t that important since you’ll mostly focus on the gameplay itself, not on what she’s wearing. Each costume provides different bonuses and penalties, so it’s not always wise, for example, to choose a costume that gives you negative effects, like increased fire damage, if you’re already in an area where fire is dominant.

Combat Has Its Ups and Downs

Now that we’ve covered some generic aspects, let’s move on to combat. WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers offers fast-paced and challenging combat. The game provides five different weapon types, each acting as a sort of class with unique playstyles. This allows for significant variety in character builds and encourages experimentation, which is truly emphasized in this game.

The “Impetus Repository skill tree,” reminiscent of Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid, offers deep customization and progression where each branch on that tree has its benefits, and you need to know from the start what you want to upgrade. There’s also a New Game+ mode, so you can experiment with different moves and spells.

“Combat isn’t perfect and has its difficulties that won’t appeal to everyone.”

However, combat isn’t perfect and has its difficulties that won’t appeal to everyone. First, I’d point out that some bosses are truly, truly too difficult. Many attacks are hard to read because, as I mentioned, there’s a delay with certain attacks, and they also have moves that you simply cannot avoid because rolling or dodging must be perfect. If you die in Wuchang during a boss battle, you’ll often have to traverse a long and tedious path back to the arena, which is genuinely frustrating.

Additionally, there are extreme variations in difficulty, where the first boss is easy, but then suddenly the third boss is so difficult that you can’t defeat them right away; you have to upgrade a bit to return and try again. Also, the healing animation is very slow, one of the slowest in the genre. Unlike many Soulslike games where blocking and parrying are fundamental universal mechanics, in Wuchang, these abilities are often tied to specific weapon types and require unlocking in the skill tree. Personally, I think The First Berserker: Khazan has perfect blocking and parrying mechanics, which Wuchang simply doesn’t measure up to, as dodging is the primary mechanic here.

Offers Interesting Mechanics, but Has Too Many Frustrating Elements

One of the very frustrating things in the game are the frequent, cheap ambushes or enemies charging from unexpected angles, which is more irritating than challenging. In other words, there are too many of these instances throughout the game, completely losing their meaning. For example, just after you’ve defeated two enemies that jumped out at you, another pair will jump out a minute later just to let you know there’s no rest. However, the combat is fluid, memorable, and fun, bringing some interesting mechanics like the Madness system or Skyborn Might.

Every time Bai Wuchang dies, a portion of the Madness meter fills, pushing you closer to a dangerous state. Higher Madness levels can provide advantages or unlock specific abilities, allowing you to “embrace your inner monster” for power, but a demon also appears to fight you and takes all your monetary resources. There’s also Skyborn Might, obtained by perfect dodging. It’s used for powerful special attacks and for casting magic.

“Combat is fluid, memorable, and fun, bringing some interesting mechanics.”

These spells primarily scale with the “Feathering” statistic and are often focused on elemental damage or status effects like corruption and plague. Since the in-game world is very expansive, I think the developers should have at least included a map. Sometimes you’ll find yourself completely lost, with no idea where to go, because the compass doesn’t help much, even though it gives you a direction to the next checkpoint.

The world is so large that you simply don’t have a sense of where you are, whether you’ve missed a hidden area, or if you really need to travel back and forth to explore something extra. Another thing worth noting is that for some reason, you can’t pause the game at all, as if you’re in an MMO title where enemies still move if you happen to need to do something.

If You Like the Soulslike Genre, This Title Is Worth Playing

Essentially, when we look at the whole picture, Wuchang is a truly fun and solid game. Although it has its pros and cons, it’s still a title you’ll enjoy playing, whether because it’s very challenging, because of the beautiful world, or perhaps because of the protagonist herself—it doesn’t really matter.

However, the bad reviews on Steam are justified, and something like that should be avoided. Personally, I didn’t have as many problems with graphics and optimization, but it’s definitely noticeable. While it doesn’t bring anything revolutionary to the Soulslike genre, it does offer something of quality and proves that Asian studios can create something that everyone will play. Additionally, Wuchang has different endings, so you’ll always have a reason to return after your first playthrough.

Unfortunately, this title has very frustrating elements that could have been avoided. Combat is quite inconsistent, sometimes good, sometimes not, and boss battles, while fun, have huge difficulty spikes. However, it’s worth trying, and you won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time on this game.

Review copy provided by the publisher