Wuchang: Fallen Feathers review: Sway like a swan, strike like a hawk

We’ve had quite a few non-FromSoftware takes on the Soulslike genre that could easily stand on their own for one reason or another, and this season, Chengdu-based Leenzee is throwing its hat in that ring in its gaming debut. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a Soulslike game that takes us to a fictional ancient China based on folklore and mythology, but it also puts some spins on the formula that make this an interesting action-RPG in its own right.

A feathery curse

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers takes players on a fictional adventure set in the lands of Shu around the end of the Ming Dynasty. Players take the role of Wuchang, a female pirate warrior that is afflicted with a strange curse. A demonic, man-eating monster has ravaged the land amid the conflicts of warring factions and left those who survive its attacks with a sickness known as the Feathering. The afflicted will grow ghostly feathers on their person, lose their memories, then their sense of humanity, and finally transform into a monster. Wuchang already has feathers on her arm and has lost her memory at the start of the game, so a worsening of the curse is her biggest problem, but it also gives her a power she uses to fight off foes and try to figure out how to save herself and others from the Feathering.

The most standout part of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is that it’s beautiful in its environments and action. The areas you travel through feature a lush menagerie of ancient temples, forests, mountains, towns, castles, underground mines, and more. Wuchang feels expansive too, with multiple paths laid out for you at many different parts of the adventure. I sometimes found myself paralyzed by choice at various crossroads because a stray path could lead to an easy treasure, or it could lead to a new, vast section and it made exploration exciting. I also found myself stopping and just taking in my surroundings several times because Leenzee did such a great job of crafting the lands you wander.

The action and enemy design is also pretty good, giving a dazzling and smooth display of offense and defense as you destroy your foes with a massive assortment of weapons and magic. And those enemies run from your typical human fare up to truly monstrous creatures full of twisted features and ferocious attacks. The only part I wasn’t keen on was some of the human character models. Most of them, outside of cutscenes, have a nasty case of doll face. I wouldn’t have really noticed because generally Wuchang’s back is to you and everything is in motion, except that when you have the camera facing Wuchang, she will sometimes look directly at the screen with her unemotive doll face. Creepy to say the least, but I also caught a look at several enemy human faces that just looked goofy, stuck in a perpetual sneer after I dispatched them. It doesn’t do a lot to detract from a game that has such an emphasis on fast action, but it’s there.

Deliver judgement & save yourself

Progression in Wuchang is typical of the Soulslike style. Players start with relatively simple equipment, a sword, the armor on their back, and a refillable health item. In addition to wandering the lands of Shu and fighting increasingly dangerous monsters and warriors, you also find plenty of rational people that have quests with rewards at the end. So, as you open up new paths and explore them, both optional and mandatory avenues also appear. Dying sends you back to a checkpoint shrine and you lose some of your currency (red mercury in this game), but an interesting twist on that is that you gain madness on each death. At a certain point, the madness makes you do more damage, take more damage, and you have to fight a demonic apparition to get your dropped currency back if the madness gets too high. Killing that apparition resets your madness, and I liked everything about that process compared to the usual drop and collection of goods on death in other games.

Another part of what makes Wuchang a joy to play is the weapons and gear you might find down any given path. The game features several classes of weapon, including the heavy and hard-hitting longsword and axe, the nimble dual swords, long-reaching spears, and the magic-imbued one-handed sword. With each weapon, Wuchang can perform light attacks, heavy attacks, charged heavy attacks, a shared discipline move, and a unique skill. What’s interesting to me is that you don’t have a universal block or parry. Blocking is confined to axe weapons as their discipline move, and eventually some moves unlock a parry as a special ability, but your best defense is generally evasion.

The unique skills are also awesome as they give huge differences to weapons that even co-inhabit the same class. For instance, the first spear you get has a charging attack that ends in an icy explosion, but another spear will let you extend the blade with chains and employ a flurry of fire in its skill. You can further augment your combat style with Benediction mods and Acupuncture needles. The mods can be slotted into weapons to give them special effects like healing on an enemy kill, and the needles give you an activatable buff that can power up various aspects of your kit, such as increasing spell damage or the effect of debuffs such as frostbite and burn. That all comes alongside a skill tree that features buffs for each weapon class or simply general buffs for Wuchang herself, and the fact that you can freely respec the skill tree means there’s tons of room for experimentation and figuring out an approach that suits you.

One of the most interesting spins on a Soulslike formula in this game is the Skyborn Might system. In lieu of a magic meter, most of your magic spells and weapon skills use accrued points of Skyborn Might. Some spells and skills need Skyborn Might points to activate while others become stronger versions when you have Skyborn points. You start with a capacity of one point, but quickly get up to three points of Skyborn Might capacity, and even further upgrades unlock the potential for stronger attacks. The most basic way to get Skyborn Might points is to dodge enemy attacks just as they’re about to hit you, but weapon classes also have upgrades such as finishing a basic combo to get a Skyborn Might point. This system makes you take risks to access Wuchang’s best attacks and it feels amazing when you figure out the ebb and flow of offense and defense to make the most of it. Just as well, you can also easily be knocked out of that flow and beaten to a pulp if you’re not careful and can’t keep your Skyborn Might points up, so it also adds to the challenge.

The foes in this game are neat as well and encourage the experimentation and combat diversity I mentioned above. I generally found the bosses and bigger enemies to be solid encounters with a reasonably increasing challenge. Even so, I wasn’t always crazy about the feedback in the game. It feels like most enemies will tank your hits without a reaction to you chopping them. It makes sense on the big guys, but it was kind of silly to me watching little bandits cut me through a flurry of spear stabs. I would probably be more bothered by it if there weren’t so many good offensive options, but it was more than noticeable and often left me a little disappointed that hit impact doesn't quite measure up to the rest of Wuchang's combat.

Break the curse, or embrace its power

Wuchang had so many paths through it, and its NPCs often tasked me with opportunities I had the option to ignore or answer to in multiple ways. That, combined with the sheer option of weapons and gear, made me feel pretty confident that I could play again and take my quest in a different direction than I did for this review. The character models don’t always look great, and the feel of combat wasn’t always where I wanted it to be, but this is still an interesting take on the Soulslike action-RPG style, bringing enough unique elements to the table that it feels well worth the challenge.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy supplied by the publisher. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers comes out on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Game Pass on July 24, 2025.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on BlueSky @JohnnyChugs.