Wuchang: Fallen Feathersis already shaping up to be one ofthe biggest hits of the year; it’s the second best-seller on Steam right now, and has reached a concurrent peak of over 100,000 players in its first day alone. Take one look at the store page, however, and the cracks immediately start to show.
Leenzee’s debut Soulslike, set in the ancient kingdom of Shu during the late Ming Dynasty, launched to “Overwhelmingly Negative” reviews on Steam, the lowest possible score you can get on the platform. Players decry that it’s just “another UE5 stutter fest”, reporting that while it might be “fun”, the performance is so bad that they’re either refunding the game or putting it down until it gets fixed.
Wuchang Fallen Feathers? More like Wuchang Fallen Performance.
“Yet another clunky UE5 souls-like that runs like a** and feels like you’re wearing ice skates,” one review reads.
“The game is actually pretty fun, but performance really really needs work - got to the point where it actively made gameplay horrible. Refunded for now,” another says.
“I love how the first boss is the loading screen and I can’t beat the boss of the shaders compiling,” another complains.
“Game did not play well on my 40 series card. Screen tearing and black screens with stutters. Game needs to be optimized,” reads a similar review.
Aside from performance issues, a big complaint a lot of players have is how the game looks, with reviews saying that the graphics are “terrible” despite their high-end gaming rigs struggling to run it. But even if you manage to drag yourself through the stuttering and screen tears, plenty of reviews say that it’s “clunky and unresponsive” anyway, and “just feels really off”.
“Combat needs more tuning,” says one reviewer. “I just encountered the 2nd main boss and the combat is actually pretty mediocre. It’s janky and the enemy pattern is hard to even tell especially when he stomps.”
Several reviews also claim that the English translation is “awful” and that they couldn’t figure out the tutorial because of it.
“Barely 20 minutes in, and this game is very rough around the edges,” another review reads. “Combat feels sluggish and unresponsive. Fighting multiple opponents is somehow even worse than in most other Soulslike games.”
With such drastic performance issues and an “Overwhelmingly Negative” anchor tied to its heel, it’ll be interesting to see if Wuchang: Fallen Feathers can keep momentum going. As the weekend fast approaches, it’ll likely climb to even higher heights, but as the negative reviews continue to pour in, it’s only becoming more and more apparent that this PC port is worth avoiding.
