After exactly one year of waiting, 2024's incredibly popular action RPG Black Myth: Wukong finally came to Xbox Series X|S late last month on August 20. The reveal of the Xbox version's release date in early June was a welcome surprise for users of Microsoft's consoles, as before then, developer Game Science commented optimizing for Xbox Series S "would take years" — making many wonder if it would ever come to Xbox at all.
But while Black Myth: Wukong's launch on Xbox was great to see, there's been a huge problem with blurry, muddy visuals in the title when played on the Series X since its arrival due to a severe lighting bug. As a result, many on the platform haven't been able to enjoy the gorgeous Unreal Engine 5-based action game as it's meant to be seen.
With the release of a new update for the RPG, however, this issue has now been resolved, and Black Myth: Wukong's visuals on Xbox should appear properly clear and sharp. News of the update — Version 1.0.20.21518 — and its arrival came on Wednesday afternoon with patch notes visible on Game Science's website.
"Fixed an issue where the graphics appeared blurry on Xbox Series X due to global illumination ghosting in Quality and Balance modes," reads the very first bullet point on the page.
In addition to squashing this bug, Game Science has also fixed a few prominent crashes and errors, resolved some progress-blocking issues with side quests, fixed a glitch that caused some bosses in the Mount Huaguo area to bizarrely shrink into the ground, and took care of a bug that caused slow responses to controller inputs in the Text Language selection dropdown.
I'm glad to see that the developers managed to fix this gnarly graphical issue within the first few weeks of Black Myth: Wukong's Xbox launch, especially with how controversial the road to it was. It started when the announcement of the Xbox version's delay for optimization came in June 2024, with Microsoft stating "We can't comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders."
I'm glad to see that the developers managed to fix this gnarly graphical issue within the first few weeks of Black Myth: Wukong's Xbox launch, especially with how controversial the road to it was.
Effectively, Microsoft was suggesting that Black Myth: Wukong was delayed on Xbox not because of optimization, but rather due to a temporary PS5 exclusivity deal with Sony — something later reports from both IGN and Forbes corroborated.
To this day, Game Science hasn't cleared things up, but at least the title is out on Xbox now. Notably, it even has 45 more achievements than the PS5 version does, putting its total on par with the Steam edition; this is because the PS5 version condenses many achievement objectives into a smaller number of trophies, while each individual objective has an achievement on both Xbox and PC.
Black Myth: Wukong quickly amassed millions of players across PC and PS5 when it launched in August 2024, solidifying itself as one of the year's biggest and most popular games. In terms of its reception, the action RPG achieved a "Generally Favorable" score of 81/100 on Metacritic, and has a "Very Positive" rating on Steam with 94% of its 65,137 reviews granting it an approving thumbs up.
Personally, I think it's a bit overrated, though as I wrote in my review, it's "a very solid ARPG with engaging bosses, fun combat mechanics, immaculate audiovisual presentation, and an enjoyable, well-written narrative." What ultimately dragged it down for me was bland level design and dull, repetitive enemy encounters between the grandiose boss fights.
Black Myth: Wukong quickly amassed millions of players across PC and PS5 when it launched in August 2024, solidifying itself as one of the year's biggest and most popular games.
Still, I don't regret playing it, and now that it's out on Xbox and isn't being affected by that troublesome global illumination bug anymore, I may even pick it up to give it a second playthrough from my living room if I can find it on sale. I'll likely do so regardless, whether on PC or Xbox, before the recently announced Black Myth: Zhong Kui follow-up comes out.
Sadly, the console versions of the $59.99 Black Myth: Wukong aren't discounted right now, but you can snag the PC edition for just $47.19 at Loaded (formerly CDKeys) thanks to a sweet deal.
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