No longer can you murk the Ming
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers got its 1.5 Patch this week, bringing multiple quality-of-life improvements to the Soulslike, but also story and boss adjustments which appear to have been made to appease Chinese netizens.
The patch notes list all the details, which include features like faster healing animations and adjustments to invincibility frames when Wuchang stands up. But buried in the margins is the nebulous line: “Added dialogs for some NPCs to complete some plots. We will further optimize the exhaustion animations in the future to improve the plot performance.”
As reported by Kotaku and pointed out by YouTuber Lance McDonald, in practice this means that several key bosses, notably those associated with the Ming dynasty, no longer die after their bloodthirsty battles with Wuchang. Instead, they fall down in exhaustion and remain in the boss arena, occasionally offering up further dialogue if Wuchang speaks with them. In the case of famous general Zhao Yun, who existed during China’s Three Kingdoms period hundreds of years before the Ming dynasty and shows up as a surprise NPC and boss, the fight is reframed as a “trial” by his immortal soul designed to test Wuchang.
With this change comes the additional fact that certain enemies associated with the Ming dynasty, such as peasant loyalists and imperial guards, are no longer hostile. This significantly alters the game’s fourth region, Worship’s Rise in Ruins, which was full of these guys. Suddenly, the vast majority of that level’s foes are friendly, making it a cakewalk in comparison to its original stressful form.
These changes appear to have been made by developers Leenzee Games in response to critical voices from the Chinese internet which have lambasted the game since its release. According to these voices, the game paints the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 AD) in a poor light.
The Ming dynasty was the last to be led by ethnic Han Chinese, and the following Qing dynasty (1644-1912 AD) was ruled by the Manchu people. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers features a distinct lack of Manchu enemies, and instead several of the game’s 24 bosses include prominent real-world persons such as Zhu Youjian, the 17th and final ruler of the Ming who was