It has only been a few weeks since Wuchang: Fallen Feathers was released, adding yet another Soulslike to the increasingly expansive array of titles in the niche. In that time, Wuchang has suffered, being plagued by stability issues at launch and facing the wrath of gamers in thousands of negative reviews.
In the latest debacle, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers’ 1.5 update has rendered fans furious as developer Leenzee ‘censors’ various aspects of the game, applies a nasty retcon, and skews some of the title’s more challenging sequences.
What Happened With Wuchang’s 1.5 Update?
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers isn’t a terrible game, but it doesn’t do too much to differentiate itself from the slew of Soulslike games drowning out the industry these days. That’s one reason why it earned some negativity at launch, but the UE5-related performance issues (particularly on PC) didn’t help the situation.
Recently, Leenzee released the 1.5 patch for Wuchang, causing chaos and disappointing fans worldwide.
With a single line in the full 1.5 patch notes, Leenzee made waves:
Added dialogs for some NPCs to complete some plots. We will further optimize the exhaustion animations in the future to improve the plot performance.
Eagle-eyed Wuchang fans dove into the game after the 1.5 patch and discovered what that meant. Following the update, certain bosses can’t be killed and enter a state of ‘exhaustion’ after being defeated. Some have been reworked with new voice lines that alter the story, and other enemies in certain sequences (such as Ming Dynasty soldiers) won’t attack you at all.
This has caused one key chapter that was previously very difficult to become a breeze, further disappointing sadomasochistic Soulslike fans.
The situation was exacerbated by mods on the official Wuchang subreddit reportedly deleting posts complaining about the 1.5 patch. This has naturally caused the review stats for Wuchang to fall into the red once again.
In a post on social media, user Lance McDonald expressed concerns about why these changes were made:
By the way, it isn’t the Chinese Government that forced these changes, WUCHANG is quite pro-government, it’s to please fringe groups of nationalists. I don’t really understand the details sadly.
It’s relatively easy to predict that Wuchang: Fallen Feathers will start falling to the wayside now, and that this will forever be a mark on Leenzee’s reputation. This was the first outing for the studio, and it certainly isn’t how you’d want to make a name for yourself.
Are you dismayed at the latest changes in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers? Let me know on the Insider Gaming forum.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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