Controversy Erupts as Fallen Feathers Faces Censorship Allegations

Alright, so get this — Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is, like, a game that’s got folks calling it a bunch of stuff. From “Souls-slop” to “gooner-bait” to “surprisingly good.” And now? You can slap “censored” onto that list. All because of this wild 1.5 update that just dropped. They say it’s to calm some backlash from Chinese fans. But ya gotta wonder, right? Anyway, the diehard fans who grabbed the disc version are probably smirking now. Why? ‘Cause they can still play the original game, and avoid all the mess with this update that happened last month.

So this patch shows up earlier this week, and yeah, a lot of it seemed, well, harmless? Speedier healing animation? Yes, please. Dodging out of recovery? Sweet! But then, there’s this, let’s say, subtle weirdness. Like a note saying they’ve “added dialogs” for NPCs to “complete some plots.” What does that even mean? And they’re gonna “optimize animations” to “improve plot performance?” Sounds pretty corporate-speak to me.

Now, Leenzee, the developer, what were they even thinking? Apparently, it’s a whole thing. Lance McDonald, who kinda knows their stuff about Souls games, spilled the beans on social media. Turns out, you can’t kill these big historically important bosses or NPCs anymore. Nope. They just, like, get tired? And chill with you afterward. Historical folks like Liu Wenxiu, Liu Cheng’en, Emperor Chongzhen, who used to meet their end in the game, are now just… hanging out?

And apparently, some players lost it when you could off the “Dragon Emperor” from the late Ming Dynasty in-game. But the kicker? He was dead by then historically. So, now letting him chill instead kinda messes with the plot big time.

Lance keeps going, saying how this was due to the outrage from Chinese players about killing these key historical figures. It’s just bonkers, right? Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, the Portuguese Christian character’s “pray” gesture? Gone. And they dialed back the fighting spirit of Ming soldiers in Chapter 4, so now it’s all easy-peasy when it used to be tough as nails.

With other nerfs on enemy armor and boss fights, players aren’t exactly thrilled about patch 1.5. Steam and Reddit are alive with folks not too happy and some even say complaints are getting tossed out on the Wuchang subreddit. “After 80 hours on Steam, I switched to console,” one fan declared. Another group’s trying to undo the updates on Steam, like a digital time rewind.

But hey, not everyone’s up in arms. Some are just glad PC performance is inching better, bit by bit. So, does this mean its reviews on Steam are climbing back up? Nope. Performance woes switched places with review-bombing over this censorship thing. Why Leenzee did this? Who knows. They’re keeping quiet. Oh, and 1.5 is now on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Just in case you were curious.