Update - August 20: This article first appeared in June after our early hands-on preview with Black Myth: Wukong. With the game finally out and seeing record player counts, we wanted to re-share the story of how one of our authors became the first player at Summer Game Fest, according to a representative for developer Game Science, to beat the optional boss Wandering Wight by stubbornly wasting his limited preview time on one boss he was clearly under-leveled for. Wandering Wight is now taking names in the full version of the game, and by sheer kill count, he was also one of the hardest bosses in our Black Myth: Wukong review playthrough.
Original story:
As part of our Black Myth: Wukong hands-on preview, I found and beat about seven different bosses in the two-hour demo for the upcoming action RPG. It's good! Very good, even. I can't talk about one of the hidden bosses, but I can absolutely talk about one of the optional ones: the Wandering Wight, a towering, big-headed monk described as glowing like aged copper and roaming the mountains in search of something lost. I tell you what, reader, he's lost a lot more now but at least his search is over.
A representative for developer Game Science told me that, as of the third day of Summer Game Fest, I was the first person to actually beat this boss, so I'm eager to talk about it. (If anyone else out there did beat this boss and this was just a communication error, don't shoot the messenger.) Not at all because I'm embarrassingly pleased with an insignificant accomplishment in a video game – not at all – but because this boss says a lot about how Black Myth: Wukong is structured.
The Wandering Wight was a fun fight. He's on the slower, gigantic side of bosses, but still moves unpredictably with wild spins and abrupt stomp and jump attacks. He's also hiding a full-on, palms-out air cannon which I had a lot of trouble dodging for a while. The characterization throughout the fight is great, too. He moans and whimpers and roars as you clobber him. He trips and stumbles and falls over entirely if you pressure him hard enough. He's a tragic figure, ultimately, but hey, he started it.
The thing that really stood out is that the Wandering Wight is just... there. He's just walking around in this forest level like a normal enemy. He is a proper boss with a special on-screen health bar, and the area around him is cleared out like an arena, but it's all very freeform. You can go right by him if you want, which I assume is why most people apparently didn't beat him; they understandably decided not to waste limited demo time on this guy. But I'm too stubborn for that. My fate was sealed as soon as the rep informed me that he was undefeated, and as soon as my friend Morgan Park of PC Gamer, who tried the demo before me, shared how many bosses he had beaten. It was on now.
Five or six attempts later, I finally emerged victorious, and the heart-thumping satisfaction was exquisite. I felt a bit under-leveled, but that's nothing a little strategy can't fix. I worked out attack openers, phase transitions, dodge timing. I was into this fight, man, and that bodes well for Black Myth: Wukong's action chops. The difficulty felt just right, and I got a ton of levels for my trouble. I can't wait to do that again.
Black Myth: Wukong is coming to PS5 and PC on August 20, with the Xbox Series X|S version coming at a later date due to optimization issues.
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