Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is currently crumpling under a flood of negative Steam reviews—at the time of writing, only 30% being positive—due to, primarily, performance issues and bugs.
Having given it a try myself and had similar issues, I'd simply written it off as having a meek 3060, not exactly the Ritz of graphics cards. But I wasn't the only one suffering frame drops and muddy textures:
"I had spent probably the first 30-45 minutes just fiddling with the graphics settings. Nothing seemed to want to make this run at a decent GPU usage, FPS and latency," writes one player. Another adds that the "boss fights are pretty decent (from the ones I managed to play)", giving it a thumbs down over similar performance woes.
The developer, Leenzee, has addressed these concerns in a statement on Steam. "We have received reports," it writes, "Regarding issues such as the game’s optimization not meeting expectations, errors in distributing pre-order rewards, and some abnormal pricing. These problems should never have occurred, and we deeply regret the inconvenience and negative experience some players are currently facing.
"We are confident in the game’s performance within our recommended spec but we’re working on optimization. We are looking to issue a patch as soon as we can."
As for the overall critical reception? It's a mixed bag. It didn't quite take off for our own reviewer, Tyler Colp, who called it a "game that constantly reminded me of all the ways FromSoft has done it better" in his Wuchang: Fallen Feathers review.
Even as a certified soulslike freak, I bounced off it myself—finding its environment design a little baffling despite liking some of its core ideas. Bare minimum, I don't think its opening hour makes a good first impression. I'm certain the sluggish framerate and poorly implemented upscaling I was getting weren't helping matters, though.
Mind, I've just finished slapping my way through Round 8's stellar DLC Lies of P: Overture, so I might simply need a break. I can only dodge roll or parry so many times before I need a palette cleanser.
