Sadly, The Crown of Wu is not a game about the Wu-Tang Clan as one might assume based on the name.
In this case, Wu refers to Sun Wukong, the Monkey King and Chinese god from the ancient fable Journey to the West. It is not a game about the Wu-Tang Clan, which would have been inherently superior in every way. But it’s 2020, so we can’t have nice things.
You’d probably also assume that The Crown of Wu is coming from some Chinese developer based on the subject matter, but you’d be wrong! It’s from Spanish developer Red Mountain in collaboration with Trazos School and Sony Interactive Entertainment. Trazos School is a Spanish art college that collabs with gaming studios, so at least part of The Crown of Wu is some grad student’s final art project. Which is kinda neat.
But what about the game itself? The Crown of Wu is a third-person action-adventure game where you fight dudes and jump around while solving puzzles. So it’s just like every other third-person action platformer out there, but with a distinctly Chinese twist.
In addition to borrowing the main character, The Crown of Wu seems to borrow liberally from Sun Wukong’s legend as well. Wu was the Emperor’s herald but one day went rogue and started running amok. The Emperor eventually captured Wu and sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in a frozen prison, only to escape many years later. You start the game waking up from what feels like a long dream to discover that your crown and incredible magic powers are gone. Also, you gotta stop a bunch of robots from terrorizing the populace.
Run around capturing magical gems to restore your powers and eventually take back your taken crown, all while running around ancient Chinese architecture that’s been all Cyberpunked-up but has yet to become horrifically overcrowded.
The Crown of Wu arrives later this year as a PS4 digital exclusive.
Source: Sony
