Fans of the Soulslike action RPG Wuchang: Fallen Feathers are flocking to Steam to leave negative reviews owing to what appears to be an attempt at censoring some of the game's content in its latest update.
As noted by none other than Soulslike aficionado and Bloodborne modder Lance McDonald on social media (via Windows Central), Update 1.5, which was released recently, changes the game so that it's impossible to "kill any historically significant bosses or NPCs".
Instead, according to McDonald, these enemies and bosses simply "get 'exhausted' and relax after the fight and talk to you". It also seems as though a Pray emote, taught to the player by a Portuguese Christian missionary during the course of the game, has been removed.
According to McDonald, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers' fourth chapter is now "insanely easy" because half of the chapter's enemies will no longer attack you, and you also can't attack them, so a vast portion of that chapter's challenge has been removed.
Not only that, but the game's protagonist now also apparently pledges to "continue [the] legacy" of bosses she defeats, which, as McDonald notes, "literally ruin[s] the entire point of the game's plot about impermanence".
There are many more examples of these kinds of changes throughout McDonald's social media thread, and I'd recommend reading it if you want to know what's different after the update.
The official patch notes themselves don't really make reference to these changes, either; there's a brief note about adding "dialogs for some NPCs to complete some plots" and "further optimiz[ing] the exhaustion animations in the future to improve the plot performance", but nothing concrete.
Needless to say, these changes haven't exactly thrilled Steam users, with many leaving negative reviews decrying Wuchang: Fallen Feathers' "sudden" plot changes, "censorship", and attempts to appease "whiny Chinese nationalists".
Ironically, those complaints now appear to have overtaken the very "nationalist" ire the update was seemingly intended to address. Whether or not Leenzee will make further changes remains to be seen, but it does seem as though Wuchang: Fallen Feathers has been significantly changed through Update 1.5.
At any rate, if you'd like to check out the game, you can do so right now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and it's also available as a Game Pass title. You can read our review of the game (pre-update 1.5, of course) right here.
