Last week, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers received a very controversial update that made major changes to the Soulslike game, rendering multiple bosses impossible to kill, and formerly antagonistic characters into BFFs. The 1.5 update was seemingly a response to a negative reaction to the game’s reception in China, but this caused a whole other backlash in the rest of the world, seeing the game review-bombed on Steam. But over the weekend a fan-made mod has been released that will roll your Steam version of the game back to version 1.4.
The whole situation of Wuchang is a peculiar one. Soulslikes are very big business in China, and games like Black Myth: Wukong from Chinese developer Game Science celebrate Chinese mythology while gaining tacit approval from the Chinese state. However, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, despite coming from Chinese developer Leenzee and clearly attempting a similar exploration of Chinese history, has fallen foul of public reception at home. The representation of various historical figures of the Ming dynasty, but not then including condemnation of the subsequent Qing dynasty, has been seen as inaccurate or disrespectful by some, and as such Leenzee updated the game to address these perceived issues, both changing how boss fights play out, and significantly affecting the later states of the game where far fewer characters will attack you. Thus, the enormous backlash. Well, the second backlash, after the game went through its first round of negative reviews due to performance issues on PC.
It’s very hard to appreciate the situation a Chinese developer will find itself, given the need for state approval to be able to sell a game, while their story stepped on controversial toes far less appreciable outside of the country. My understanding of the situation is rudimentary, but it appears analogous with the ongoing issues in the U.S. regarding how its history is represented, especially when it comes to race. With growing discontent surrounding the game in China, there would have been enormous pressure to make these changes, no matter how much the wider world might disapprove. It’s very much a rock and hard-place scenario for Leenzee.
However, for those playing the game on Steam, there’s now a solution. The “Rollback censorship patch” via NexusMods—created by DarkmoonBlade—will undo the mandatory Steam update, taking Wuchang back to its 1.4 state, and as such no longer have many of the bosses become “exhausted” rather than dead. It’ll also restore the original story. You’ll also need to disable the auto-update feature for the game in Steam, or it’ll just reinstall itself immediately, and then run the game via the game’s .exe rather than through Steam.
For all the response, there’s little evidence it’s changed anything with regards to the game’s popularity. The game’s Steam player numbers have maintained the same continuous descent they were already on before the patch, rather than showing any steep decline or widespread boycotting. While Wuchang peaked at a very impressive 131,000 simultaneous players in late July, that’s steadily dropped to the 16,000 or so who showed up over the weekend. Like so many Soulslikes, it seems to have had its moment, failing to cut deeper into the zeitgeist like the likes of Black Myth: Wukong. (The August 2024 game broke records with its 2.4m players, but has settled to a steady 40,000 for months.)