Bizarre Wuchang: Fallen Feathers patch un-murders historical Chinese characters in massive retcon, makes the game way easier, and breaks a whole chapter: "Faint from exhaustion? Are they Pokemon?"

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers patch 1.5 arrived on PC on August 12, and rather than discourse around game balance versus quality-of-life features, it's ignited blowback over a narrative retcon that's also gutted portions of the gameplay.

Players soon learned that this update made several bosses based on historical Chinese figures unkillable. Instead, these bosses now faint from "exhaustion" after you beat them, as the patch notes rather opaquely hint.

"Added dialogs for some NPCs to complete some plots," developer Leenzee vaguely announced. "We will further optimize the exhaustion animations in the future to improve the plot performance."

Despite the enormity of this change, the studio scarcely even mentions it, and almost seems to actively avoid detailing the specifics or scope of it. The 1.5 patch notes do say the update "Made adjustments to animations, values, and level design for certain NPCs and AI" and "Added/revised certain audio lines," but there's nothing in the neighborhood of 'Made an entire faction functionally immortal and took a sledgehammer to the narrative.'

As Soulslike sleuth Lance McDonald points out, this change also extends to Ming Dynasty soldiers and many civilians, who are no longer hostile and can't be killed. This is particularly relevant to Chapter 4 of Wuchang. It's full of these soldiers and the whole chapter is now dramatically easier because, all of the sudden, most of the level's enemies aren't enemies anymore.

This chapter is probably the strongest evidence that these changes were a knee-jerk reaction. You don't wake up and gut an entire chapter of your game for no reason. "Chapter 4 is a complete cake walk now. So disappointing," one player puts it.

Twitter user nazar1328 shared a screenshot showing the amended dialogue of one boss, who previously – in keeping with the game's themes of impermanence – faded away in melancholy, but now insists that his fight with the player was merely a trial and he'll just be chilling out backstage. Another boss, per McDonald, "just stands around" after the fight, totally out of place. Other players have criticized similar blows to the game's narrative, arguing "this clearly isn't what the devs intended" from the start.

Many fans of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers have blamed this retcon on vocal minorities of Chinese nationalists who took issue with the game's treatment and portrayal of figures, or characters based on figures, of the Ming Dynasty.

There is precedent for games made by Chinese developers receiving post-launch changes in direct response to, or in extremely clear orbit of, strong feedback from Chinese players critical of that game's portrayal of some element of the country's culture or history. The Steam user reviews for Wuchang saw fairly similar rhetoric at launch (according to machine translated Chinese reviews), and it's become a heated topic in the replies to the patch notes post. (Our own Wuchang: Fallen Feathers review is mostly positive, though it also took issue with difficulty spikes and story wobbles.)

That being said, it can be dangerously easy to tie such changes to real or imagined nationalists, or to purported demands by the Chinese government itself. It definitely doesn't seem baseless here – well, the government conspiracies do – but some of the discussion around this has, itself, gotten out of hand. I've reached out to the studio for comment on its decision with this patch and will update if I hear back.

Notably, multiple posts discussing the 1.5 retcon have seemingly been deleted from the official Wuchang Reddit community. (I've been watching a few others, and those have not been deleted.) Some players have instead taken to the general Soulslike subreddit to discuss the patch, lamenting that some of the game's standout moments have been toned down or outright undermined.

"Faint from exhaustion? Are they Pokemon?" wonders opposite_of_hotcakes (which I assume is coldcakes).

"Glad I finished the game last week," adds PemaleBacon.

Wuchang's Steam forums and reviews have also been affected by this patch blowback. Several Chinese posts (again, machine translated) support the theory that this patch was meant to mollify a vocal minority, but argue that group doesn't represent the majority of players in China or beyond. Another user reckons the best solution is to give players a choice in how the plot plays out and how Ming Dynasty characters are treated.

Many Chinese users also latched onto the adjusted treatment of the game's Emperor, stressing that "the core of the entire plot is gone" as a result of the 1.5 changes. One post, written in both Chinese and English by Little Penguin, puts it this way: "It’s sad to see the studio tossing aside its vision just to soothe a chorus of sentimental, irrational complaints. You started a hard-core soul-like game, so finish it like one. A real chef never asks if it’s too salty."

If I'm confident of anything in this mess, it's that Wuchang has had some of the weirdest updates I've ever seen, and this latest patch probably won't satisfy anyone. Some haters are going to hate no matter what you do and catering to them is pointless, and many folks who weren't bothered by the original story seem confused or annoyed by the new one.

This firestorm has also totally overshadowed discussion of gameplay changes in patch 1.5, like buffs to the healing and get-up animations which make the game easier by improving mobility. The devs have also laid the groundwork for an upcoming update which will let players respawn closer to boss fights after death, cutting down on run back time. Some of this stuff sounds pretty cool, and some has stoked concerns that the game is now far too easy, but it's all getting drowned out by the retcon noise.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers reaches holy land of "Mixed" 40% positive Steam reviews after emergency patches, and like every other modern Soulslike, the devs are also targeting "difficulty levels and boss encounters."