No, we haven't had enough soulslikes, and Wuchang Fallen Feathers proves it

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers has had a rough time of it lately. Since its release, it's been lambasted for poor PC performance issues that persist despite numerous post-launch updates. More recently, developer Leenzee has caught flak for playing resolution upscaling tricks and rolling out a controversial retcon patch. Nevertheless, despite being entrenched in a 'mixed' rating on Steam, it's impossible to ignore how soulslike fans on social platforms have welcomed it with open arms.

Unfortunately for Leenzee, Wuchang's uphill battle began long before release. In the first half of 2025 alone, we've had Elden Ring Nightreign, The First Berserker: Khazan, AI Limit, and Lies of P Overture, and the genre shows no signs of slowing down. A dark cloud of exhaustion descended, along with one pervasive sentiment: 'Haven't we had enough soulslikes by now?' I'm here to argue that no, we have not. Just like we haven't had enough RPGs, platformers, first-person shooters, or grand strategy games - like it or not, soulslike games are here to stay.

Dark Souls rose to prominence for its particular mechanics, but its ability to flourish into a subgenre so prevalent in the first place comes down to aesthetics. Consider that the FPS fatigue that plagued the mid-to-late 2000s had less to do with the core mechanics of the first-person shooter, but the explosion of brown across our screens. The current soulslike fatigue, such as it is, stems from a lack of aesthetic diversity.

Game director Xia Siyuan says the inspiration for Wuchang: Fallen Feathers came from "Chinese mythology and archeological discoveries." Of course, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is just the latest in a long line-up of soulslikes that take Chinese culture as their prime inspiration. With that in mind, I'm curious if Siyuan believes this is just another aesthetic trend for soulslikes to follow, or proof that videogames are an effective tool to introduce that culture to foreign audiences. "Chinese culture is profound and extensive," he muses.

Where many soulslikes can exist in any place and time - and in many cases include an elision of both - it's impossible to decouple Wuchang from its cultural heritage any more than the human minds that developed it. "We grew up listening to various myths and legends told by our elders, including the worship of feathered people represented by King Du Yu of Shu, the mysterious Sanxingdui and Jinsha ruins," Siyuan tells me. "These stories deeply attracted us."

Perhaps what separates Wuchang: Fallen Feathers from its peers is that its mythological adaptation has closer ties to a historical site rather than a work of fiction. We can visit the Sanxingdui Museum or the Jinsha Site Museum in Sichuan, press our noses to the pane of glass that separates us from Ancient Shu, and connect to the Bronze Age civilization where a real kingdom once stood. "Conceptually, we hope that the scene and ecology are a whole, to build an environment rich in ecology, humanities, and stories, and we hope that players can walk vividly in this era," Siyuan says.

Leenzee has gone to great lengths to recreate Ming dynasty architecture using a plethora of drones, cameras, and laser scanners. Black Myth: Wukong also used 3D mapping drones as a cost-effective solution to its sky-high fidelity. Its faithful recreation of major historical landmarks like the Yungang Grotto, Fanjing Shan, and the Pagoda of Fogong Temple all lend it authenticity as an adaptation of Journey to the West. Hellblade 2 uses the same technology to craft its "love letter to Iceland," though its authenticity is a sidebar to its value as a reflection of Senua's own psychological landscape. By contrast, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is its environment.

Wukong is so preoccupied with the spectacle of its bosses that the sheer richness of its interstitial environments is lost as the player's perspective narrows to the next fight. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty promises an exploration of feudal China, but its generic environments serve as a functional but uninspired backdrop for the fantastical elements of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. According to Siyuan, the hope is that "the atmosphere of Wuchang, from the gameplay and cultural elements, will […] enrich the content of Chinese culture."

Of course, culture runs deeper than ancient artifacts and drone scans. "Most soulslike games are based on Western fantasy performances," Siyuan remarks. "We use a performance that is more in line with the form of Eastern fantasy to tell the story." The potential side-effect here is that the finer points of this formula might be lost on Western audiences - but given that Dark Souls's story is modelled after Miyazaki's childhood experience of reading English-language books beyond his comprehension, what goes around comes around.

It's not all about aesthetics. Leenzee's pledge to balance ambition with accessibility has certainly pushed them to diverge from the typical soulslike formula. "Although there is no 'easy mode' in the traditional sense, we use the flexibility of the system to allow new players to gradually adapt to the rhythm and slowly integrate into this world at their own pace," Siyuan outlines. He cites the Inner Demon system and free skill reset as just one of several ways players can control their own experience.

Even so, Wuchang's gamut of novel systems could appear in any other soulslike - and in many cases, have already. It's when Leenzee becomes more committed to following in the footsteps of FromSoftware that I'm least in love with it. I'm not referring to its "box-style" level design or other hereditary programming, but the story, characters, and indeed aesthetic choices that blast me right back to Dark Souls; to Bloodborne; to Sekiro. To quote my Wuchang: Fallen Feathers review, "all it does is make Wuchang seem more derivative than it actually is."

Wuchang is far from the first soulslike to lean on FromSoftware, but these fleeting moments are so bathetic because Leenzee strives for a more appreciable cultural touchstone than a collection of soulslike conceits in a trenchcoat. Why am I still playing Wuchang? Stop parrying, and look around.