Ever since its reveal in 2020, Black Fantasy: Wukong has been an alluring challenge. Developer Sport Science has been surprisingly open compared to different AAA studios and the sport’s obvious ambitions have been strengthened with every press launch: a hero-focused motion sport retelling the story of Journey to the West, and a graphical tour de pressure utilizing the newest Unreal Engine options. In reality, on PC Wukong makes use of the Nvidia department of UE5 to allow full ray tracing, promising an much more spectacular presentation. With the total sport in hand, it is time to see if Sport Science has fulfilled the graphical promise of that first trailer, how the RT options work on PC, and what optimised settings can be utilized to ship a clean expertise on a variety of {hardware}. Sufficient monkey enterprise then, let’s get proper into it.
From the second the sport begins up, it is clear that Sport Science has delivered a stage of graphical constancy that surpasses that of the preliminary trailer. The dazzling intro to the sport dazzles, with titanic legendary beings looming over you and a whole space replete with distinctive volumetric rendering that is sadly uncommon within the fashionable age.
With every sprint, workers swipe and little bit of motion, the principle character and his nemesis distort and transfer the bodily quantity of fog that they discover themselves in. Past Housemarque’s Returnal and a few legacy PhysX titles, actual physicalised particles like this are uncommon, and Sport Science made certain to make use of this GPU-intensive impact successfully so as to add a mystical flourish to sport moments and character entrances.
Fascinating particle results resembling these will be discovered all through the sport, accentuating fight, hinting in the direction of enemy assault patterns and rewarding you for efficiently defeating an enemy. Generally particle results seem like cheesy, out-of-place add-ons, however right here I really feel like they’re all the time nicely located within the sport’s theme and environments.
The areas you progress via in Black Fantasy: Wukong are additionally an actual spotlight of the sport’s presentation – and there are a selection of technical parts which actually convey all of them collectively. The primary is an Unreal Engine 5 hallmark, Nanite, which permits surfaces and structure to show a really excessive stage of geometric element. At a mean digital camera peak and distance within the sport, you’ll discover it difficult to to find any geometric edges on virtually any floor as a result of Nanite’s automated and ever-changing stage of element (LOD). This additionally prevents intrusive pop-in from LOD adjustments on virtually all the geometry within the sport, offering a extra secure presentation than prior-gen titles.
Sadly, Nanite is not used for foliage – doubtless a consequence of improvement on UE 5.0 fairly than 5.1 that added this characteristic – so bushes, shrubbery and leaves showcase extra conventional LOD adjustments as you method them.
This additionally has a knock-on impact, particularly that the sport forgoes utilizing Digital Shadow Maps (VSMs) except you are utilizing the total RT possibility. VSMs are far more costly when used on non-Nanite geometry and there is loads of foliage in most areas, so the excision of VSMs is logical. In consequence, with out Full RT on, there are extra shadow points than in different UE5 titles. There is a very distinct shadow cascade line you possibly can see on shadows close to the principle character, and any shadows after a sure distance are likely to closely blob out or present different instabilities. I presume it will have an effect on the PS5 model as nicely, however fortunately when you’ve got an ultra-high-end PC you should utilize the Full RT possibility to unravel this specific subject on the expense of a point of efficiency.
Regardless of these minor unfavourable points of the presentation, Nanite permits the sport’s property to be seen at their greatest; it is the muse upon which the sport’s extraordinarily dense environments are constructed upon. The glue holding the setting collectively although is the ray tracing: with out utilizing full RT, the sport utilises software program Lumen on PC for diffuse international illumination and specular reflections. With Full RT on, ReSTIR-based path tracing provides in further lighting element.
An enormous portion of the sport takes place out of direct daylight, and due to Lumen or path tracing, all the craggy overhangs, shadowy corners and sun-lit entrances look unbelievable. The oblique lighting element is mostly very good, and I really feel numerous areas would not work with out the usage of RT to finish the lighting. That is one other stable Lumen showcase, that is for certain.
The total RT setting enhances the lighting additional, with enhancements to the diffuse lighting seen on rougher surfaces. As the total RT path utilises very high-quality geometry as a substitute of signed distance fields (SDFs), it could actually exhibit extra high-quality element like smaller crops or leaves which might be in any other case solely captured in screen-space and subsequently can look monotone in shading or considerably undershaded. With full RT, practically all the high-quality element geometry is there and being ray traced towards, so you will note high-quality element shadowing or bounce lighting inside such crops, making them higher located of their environment for a higher-fidelity closing look. In case you take the time to breathe within the environments, this can be a welcome addition.
One other visible improve from full RT comes within the type of much less overdarkening, as SDFs are so blobby that larger sparse issues like timber are likely to over-obscure gentle, giving some areas a very darkish look. With full RT, the higher accuracy means much less over-darkening and extra sky lighting coming via, typically brightening up these areas with per-pixel precision. This distinction is delicate although, and with out side-by-side comparisons software program Lumen is ready to move for full RT on this respect.
The larger distinction with full RT regards reflections. Rougher supplies like stone are extra accuractely represented because the tracing is completed with fewer simplifications, typically permitting you to see extra floor element in any given scene. The most important distinction although is discovered on water. With software program Lumen, the vast majority of reflection element is captured with SSR, so characters and particles are lacking from reflections, whereas objects mirrored exterior of display area are blobby and replace slowly. You additionally get disocclusion artefacts when objects on-screen are obscured.
Full RT solves the vast majority of these screen-space limitations, eradicating disocclusion artefacts and making certain reflections are absolutely populated with characters and results and replace at full fee. With the character leaping, absolute zero points there with him obscuring the background – no disappearing reflections. I solely discovered one occasion the place the geometry being traced towards was misaligned with what was being mirrored, with a tree showing with lacking branches in reflection, however this did not have an effect on the identical tree mannequin in later areas. That is nice, because it means the total RT possibility on this sport practically all the time seems to be superior to software program Lumen with none obtrusive areas of oversight or trade-offs.
The ultimate addition within the full RT mode is real-time ray-guided caustics. Any water physique within the sport basically exhibits off a dynamic caustic impact, the place gentle is redirected by the water floor. Which means you possibly can see water relighting the world round it, or undulating patterns on riverbeds that align with the water’s floor deformation. Your character’s actions in water change the caustic presentation too, making it morph and ripple similar to the water above. It completely elevates the water’s presentation in my eyes and makes numerous the boss fights look further particular as all the animations trigger these secondary animation results within the setting as a result of caustics shifting round.
The distinction versus software program lumen is determined by how depth of the water and the way a lot it is in shadow; a well-lit shallow pool’s caustics contribute much more lighting to the scene, dramatically altering the water’s look. Actual-time caustic lighting may be very uncommon in video games, and I applaud the builders for including it in a means which reinforces the presentation in such a significant means.
Past the bullet level engine tech options, there are just a few different areas the place Black Fantasy: Wukong excels. Environmental interplay is one in every of them, with delicate but efficient reactivity if you stroll amongst foliage or destroy surroundings like fences and handrails. Character rendering is one other spotlight right here, a pleasant bonus on an in any other case already attractive package deal. The designs are fantastical and infrequently try to look human, however when mixed with cinematic thrives like depth of discipline, characters can look breathtaking within the (comparatively few) cutscenes. Fortunately, enemies have comparable ranges of element in open gameplay too, with ultra-high-quality textures, geometry and a heck of a variety of cool secondary animation with particles or fur.
As you possibly can most likely inform by now, Black Fantasy: Wukong is an incredible-looking sport and among the best of the yr – however that does not imply every thing is ideal. Nanite provides a variety of element, however some textures aren’t all the time as much as par and seem noticeably stretched and blurry.
One other subject is that the sport’s sharpening has been cranked as much as the max – whether or not or not you are utilizing upscalers like DLSS – and infrequently objects flush towards vivid backgrounds have a noticeably outlined look to them which is not nice. This contributes to a type of crunchy look to the sport’s visuals, one thing that is exacerbated by Wukong’s in depth use of temporal dithering. Hair can look dithered and aliased, and the identical goes for the sport’s movement blur. All of this contributes to the sport trying much less secure than it should. I might actually like an choice to undither some stuff right here, even when it comes at a efficiency price.
Talking of which, the most important subject right here is certainly efficiency – and, sadly, it is the identical sort that always afflicts Unreal Engine releases. I can no less than fortunately report that the sport has a prolonged shader precompilation sequence on boot – and even on a high-end CPU just like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, it takes a very long time and subsequently should be doing fairly a bit. Because of this, I did not encounter any in depth shader compilation stutters in-game.
As an alternative, the problem is traversal stutter. It appears like mainly each Unreal Engine sport suffers from this, and whereas it’s not the worst I’ve seen, each space is heralded with a frame-time spike – and even a number of such spikes in a row. This interrupts the circulation of the sport, and might even be felt throughout boss encounters, disrupted precise gameplay fairly than simply traversal. Enabling full RT appears to lead to proportionally bigger stutters, too. There are even stutters that do not appear clearly linked to coming into a brand new space, whether or not or not full RT is engaged.
Total, issues aren’t as dangerous as they’re in Jedi Survivor for instance, however it’s nonetheless annoying to maintain encountering these frame-time spikes when making an attempt to benefit from the sport. Unreal Engine is my bane in the intervening time, and this sport is one other so as to add to the checklist of “stutter battle” casualties.
A compounding subject is that the total RT possibility additionally provides frame-time spikes of its personal, making the sport much less clean than it might be. That is true even with the high-end Ryzen 7 7800X3D, so reaching a secure 60fps with full RT more-or-less calls for the 7800X3D or one other equally performant CPU. Secondly, to get a clean presentation you a VRR-capable show and likewise cap the frame-rate at round 60fps with full RT on. In case you use an uncapped frame-rate with DLSS 3 body gen, for instance, the disparity between frame-times turns into uncomfortably massive. In the long run, solely the most important PCs on the market ought to use full RT, primarily as a result of these CPU efficiency necessities. For everybody else, I might recommend utilizing the lower-quality software program Lumen answer as a substitute regardless of its constancy compromises, which is a disgrace.
I’ve one closing efficiency tip too: if you wish to get higher efficiency in your GPU, don’t use the sport’s cinematic high quality preset. Because the identify suggests, this preset is often hidden in Unreal Engine titles and is meant to be used in sport cinematics; the excessive preset tends to be a better-optimised model in Unreal Engine 5. We did not have fairly sufficient time to ship a full set of optimised settings right now, however beginning on the excessive preset on a high-end setup ought to depart you in good stead.
With that, that is nearly all I can say about Black Fantasy: Wukong on PC. It is an extremely attractive sport, however it’s not with out its points. I actually wish to see the developer do as a lot as attainable to enhance frame-time stability, because the gameplay and graphical presentation are sadly let down by frame-time spikes that may bitter the expertise for proportion of gamers. From what I perceive, the sport will probably be getting patches, and I assume that will probably be one thing they’ll wish to attempt to tackle. In any other case, I hope Sport Science think about including DLSS ray reconstruction to the combo, as the sport would not at present use it. Past that, this sport’s heavy profile on PC does make me surprise what the PS5 model seems to be like, and we’re endeavouring to reply that query as quickly as we are able to.
