Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a Wuxia-style game I covered back in March that finally released this past Wednesday. Having played it end to end, I’m back to share my thoughts.
Developed by Leenzee and published by 505 Games, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is one of the finest additions to the Wuxia and Souls-like genres, taking inspiration from Sekiro: Shadow Dies Twice and Bloodborne while simultaneously adding its own welcome spin.
With five weapon types to master, a variety of magic to cast, and a dodging system that makes close combat feel both thrilling and fascinating, Wuchang reminds us that the early 2000s era of replayability in a video game isn’t gone.
Wu Who?
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers opens with you lying on a stone floor, picking up a family heirloom in the form of a blade (your first weapon), and discovering you’ve been afflicted by a terrible disease called “the feathering” where you’ll slowly lose your memories. Our main character can’t speak, but goes by the name Wuchang (even though her real name is Bai Ziyun).
Like any good Souls-like, you’re thrust into the world with only environmental suggestions and an interesting host of NPCs to guide you on your journey. At first, I was thrown off by these characters, as many of them had no quests to offer (one in particular didn’t speak at all). A lot of mystery surrounds these characters in the opening zones, and it can be hard to distinguish them from enemies. (It speaks to the gameplay design that you’re on your toes with every new body that appears on screen.) Eventually, though, you’ll recognize your “allies” from sight alone.
The world Wuchang explores is the land of Shu, which is in a tumultuous state. The Tang Empire has fallen, rebels have cleared out the palace, and the villagers have been caught in between. It’s the perfect setting for a disease to spread, but the feathering, as it turns out, is not simply a pandemic. This becomes clear when you reach the Tang Palace (an area nearly every NPC mentions) later on in the game. It’s here where Wuchang’s narrative reveals its true colors.
The more NPCs see Wuchang unaffected by the feathering, the more they come to appreciate her, or dread her existence.
Ultimately, this is a story of Wuchang’s destiny. For reasons you will come to learn, she’s the only character who isn’t losing her memories; if anything, the feathering is empowering her, not hindering her. The more NPCs see Wuchang unaffected, the more they come to appreciate her, or dread her existence. By the end, they all come to fear and respect her power, tenacity, and resilience. Without giving anything away, there’s a reason Wuchang has to be the last one standing.
Who Needs a Parry?
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers has the fastest, most twitch-heavy gameplay I’ve experienced since Sekiro: Shadow Dies Twice. Dodging within the margin of a single attack frame (what the game calls “shimmering”) has never felt better, letting you live out your Hong Kong cinema thrills. As you successfully evade, you’ll build up your “Skyborn Might” gauge, which allows you to switch weapons with a special effect (more on that in a bit), or cast magic.
Dodging within the margin of a single attack frame has never felt better.
The more you fight and lose, the more likely you’ll build up your “madness,” which leads to the physical manifestation of your inner demon. Some areas automatically trigger this manifestation; you can also build up to it over time or by using various items. Your inner demon is as devious as it sounds: Sometimes it warps from nothing to strike you down, while other times it patiently waits for you to collect your dropped Red Mercury (the game’s currency), stepping in from the void cinematically for a showdown.
Wuchang doesn’t feature a traditional parry mechanic. Instead, you can “clash” with enemy attacks, canceling them and gaining priority for a follow-up attack. Combat is a delicate ebb and flow, so understanding your enemies’ attacks will allow you to switch weapons quickly and effectively.
The act of switching weapons, known as “switch draw,” is critical to mastering combat in Wuchang. There’s an extensive skill tree, which takes advantage of the unique styles of the five weapons you pick up in your adventure. The further you progress in each weapon tree, the more weapon-specific advantages you learn. Understanding when to switch to each weapon will make you a proper threat, allowing you to read enemy combo flows and break them. Keep in mind, though: Each weapon has unique requirements to unleash its switch draw attack.
While Wuchang: Fallen Feathers has traditional attributes to invest in, including strength, agility, health, magic and endurance, “feathering” is also included in this list. Upping this attribute upgrades the special effects your weapon can inflict and enhances your feathering-related attacks.
Each weapon also features “disciplines,” or upgradeable skills to be learned as you develop your skill tree. These can be switched in and out to combo effectively and test out various weapon pairings. This is one of the few games where doubling up on the same weapon may not seem ridiculous once you experience how different some of these move sets can be. There are countless builds to master, allowing you to hone in your preferred play style.
Like many Souls-likes, Wuchang does not pause when you bring up the game’s menu. It does, however, offer an extensive tutorial and reference list for all of the terminology you will encounter on your journey. It even showcases the discipline and unique weapon skills you acquire. Engage with its materials at your own peril.
Entering the Land of Shu
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers starts off as a predominantly linear experience. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, although it is easy to miss out on items if you don’t take time to clear out an area before progressing. The game does eventually open up, with multiple branching paths predominant in the mid to later stages of the game.
At times, it feels like you must play for long periods before reaching the next “shrine” (i.e., rest point); however, this most often means you missed one, or you haven’t opened the right shortcut. For this reason, it can be particularly helpful to look thoroughly while playing. Thankfully, when teleporting between shrines, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers shows you which NPCs have active quests and where they reside. It’s a welcome touch when completing quests, ensuring you won’t need to remember what someone said or how to find them again.
The game also features hub areas, which move around depending on your current progress. Initially, you’ll gather at a pair of temples, where monks and scholars have been researching ways to cure the feathering. While neither hub connects to the later levels, there are story-based reasons for their usage, which you will discover on your journey.
Another standard of the genre is a plethora of wearables, consumables, and obtainables. Wuchang embraces this well, detailing a lot of its lore with these objects like any good Souls-like should, and letting you draw your own conclusions. Wearables like pendants enhance combat prowess, while updating your sword’s “benediction” advances the benefits it receives under certain conditions. In the late-game, these become particularly powerful once you combine them with “tempering,” a method to modify your character’s weapon damage.
However, at times it feels as if there are too many things to consume. Adding to the confusion is the fact that some consumables appear only once in the game. Many of these are quest items designed to be saved, so be sure to ignore their (admittedly extraordinary) healing effects. I stuck to the standard HP flash heals and a few other health restoratives.
Another rather noticeable flaw of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is its facial animations. Characters are often deadpanned in their expressions when the camera focuses on them, particularly outside of cutscenes. It can be jarring to see how strange these faces look, but it doesn’t hamper gameplay, thankfully.
If the developers wanted a generic “save the world” character, then they shouldn’t have named her Wuchang.
Ultimately, however, my biggest gripe with the game is Wuchang’s agency, or lack thereof. You don’t hear much of her opinion or inner dialogue even though she does have voice acting to start off the game. It’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t have more to say about her experiences. There are some genuinely gut-wrenching moments between characters, yet for a woman who is supposedly desperately searching for her sister, she comes off as cold and empty. If the developers wanted a generic “save the world” character, then they shouldn’t have named her Wuchang.
Final Thoughts
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a must-play for fans of fast combat. The controls are smooth, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome (my playtime clocked in at about 45 hours), and the boss fights are well-designed but punishing in the way you’d expect from a Souls-like. Missing an attack can be the difference between death and a staggering combo, but this applies to both you and your enemies. The game’s peak skill test can be defined by the boss fight in the Tang Emperor’s Palace — something I won’t spoil here.
The story may initially appear on the lighter side, but there’s subtle foreshadowing of something darker throughout, plus a great twist of an ending that really turns the narrative on its head. Couple this with the strong lore and interesting characters, and you have a formula ensuring you’ll want to see your adventure through. That said, I wish there were more things to discover in Wuchang’s actual world. The environments are inviting, but the linear focus makes it so you can only appreciate the views. Given the beauty of the game, I would have loved additional means of transversal besides just running.
Countless games follow the Souls formula. Far fewer embody what’s great about those games while offering something unique.
The difficulty of the game is mostly fair, spiking only as the world opens up in the later hours, with recurring enemies that get stronger and evolve in attack strategy. I must stress that “mostly” qualifier, as some of these bosses get noticeably more challenging. By the end game, you’ll feel confident striking down even the most powerful foes, assuming you’ve made the right skill investments.
I also must at least mention Wuchang’s character design. Much like 2024’s Stellar Blade, it’s hard to avoid the rather gratuitous portrayal of the main protagonist, but once you get over the view of the character climbing ladders, you forget about it. You can also swap in alternate equipment to change this rather early on, thankfully.
Countless games follow the Souls formula. Far fewer embody what’s great about those games while also offering something unique. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers achieves that and more, with a replayable campaign that already has me excited for a second run.
Score: 8.3/10
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, developed by Leenzee and published by 505 Games, released on July 23, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. MSRP: $49.99; also available on Game Pass. Version reviewed: PS5.
Disclaimer: A review code was provided by the publisher.
Writer’s note: In the process of reviewing, I’ve noticed PC users mention performance issues. I didn’t experience any issues on PS5 for most of my 46-hour playthrough — that is, until a patch came out on 7.23.25, which caused my game to freeze intermittently during some battles. This issue impacted the final 10 hours of my playthrough, but your experience on PS5 may be more severe until the issue is fixed.
Vaughn Hunt is writer who has loved video games since he picked up a controller. His parents wouldn't let him buy swords as a child (he wanted the real ones) so he started writing, reading, and playing video games about them. A historian at heart, you'll often find him deep into a rabbit hole of culture, comics, or music.
