To achieve an 'Overwhelmingly' status on Steam, a game needs to cross a threshold of at least 500 reviews. Getting tagged as 'Overwhelmingly Negative' is, in its own twisted way, just as difficult as landing an 'Overwhelmingly Positive' rating. It takes a developer pulling a move so catastrophic, a blunder so profound that it turns the entire player base against them,or launching a product, so broken that it is literally unplayable even after handing over your hard-earned cash,to see such a result. Because of this, it is quite rare for a new title to get hit with an 'Overwhelmingly Negative' rating the moment it drops. Yet, here we are, looking at the Chinese-developed 'Wuchang: Fallen Feathers' (hereinafter 'Wuchang'), which was once hyped as the 'second Black Myth: Wukong'. It achieved that unfortunate rating immediately upon release, managing to stand out for all the wrong reasons.

While optimization is the primary target of the vitriol, the general consensus is hardly glowing. Players are citing stiff character movement, lacklustre combat feedback, and the bizarre inability to remap keys. To make matters worse, missing Deluxe Edition pre-order rewards and pricing errors have only fanned the flames of discontent. Reports indicate that even console performance is a disaster, demanding an urgent fix from the developer.

With the game in such a state, even the typically supportive Chinese player base has turned cynical. A quick glance at the Chinese Steam reviews reveals a barrage of criticism: "The optimization is a disaster," "It feels like a scam buying the Deluxe Edition," and "This is just a B-grade game." International players are no kinder, with comments like "Graphics don't justify the poor performance" and "You need a 5090 and DLSS just to maintain a stable frame rate." While the developer has promised optimization patches and compensation for errors—nudging the status to 'Mostly Negative' (28% positive out of 13,052 reviews) by the 25th, one day after launch—the core sentiment remains largely unchanged.

'Black Myth: Wukong' continues to hold its 'Overwhelmingly Positive' ratingeven nearly a year after its release, proving that the Chinese games industry can indeed produce AAA PC and console experiences. As a result, several titles touted as potential successorshave been emerging. With 'Wuchang', the first of the pack, collapsing so pathetically, the hype surrounding the others is looking increasingly shaky. Of course, these are all different studios, so there is no guarantee they will follow the same path. Will the upcoming Chinese titles manage to transcend the shadow of 'Wuchang' and earn the title of the 'next Wukong'? Or will they be remembered as even weaker entries in this nascent trend?