Fallen Feathers Faces Censorship Allegations After Controversial Update

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, huh? It’s been called all sorts of things, from Souls-slop to gooner-bait. And also, yeah, actually pretty decent. But now? Add “censored” to that mix. All thanks to the recent 1.5 patch — think it was to calm some upset fans in China. Some hardcore players are probably patting themselves on the back for snagging the disc version, keeping that untainted original close. Smart move, huh?

So, this patch — it just dropped, and it’s got a bunch of changes. Most seem harmless. Like, they sped up the healing, let you dodge out of recovery animations, and added more i-frames when you’re getting back up. Cool stuff, right? But then there’s this weirdness. One patch note was like, “Added dialogs for some NPCs to complete some plots.” Oh, and they’re gonna “optimize the exhaustion animations” or something to “improve the plot.” Whatever that means.

Hold up, though. What’s Leenzee getting at? Well, it didn’t take long to figure it out. Lance McDonald, who really seems into Souls games, explains it. “They made it so you can’t kill certain historical NPCs or bosses anymore. They just get ‘exhausted’ and chill with you after fighting. Seriously?” So, characters like Liu Wenxiu, Liu Cheng’en, and the Emperor Chongzhen? Yeah, they’re sticking around.

And people are losing it! I saw this tweet from Lance McDonald — funny how people got upset you could off the “Dragon Emperor” in the game. I mean, he was dead at that point in history anyway, so why the fuss? Now he doesn’t even die, and plot’s apparently messed up.

McDonald’s tweet storm goes on. Looks like they caved into pressure from Chinese players upset about killing off these historical figures. Gotta love censorship. The ‘pray’ emote learned from some Portuguese Christian character? Gone. Ming soldiers in Chapter 4? Now peaceful little lambs. Where’s the challenge in that?

And on top of all that, they’ve nerfed enemy armor and boss fights — people are all over Steam and Reddit, roasting patch 1.5. Even some claims that mods are erasing complaints from the Wuchang subreddit. One player’s like, “After 80 hours on Steam, I switched to console.” Sounds like a rallying cry: “Long Live Wuchang 1.0.” Some folks even try to mess with Steam files to go back to old updates.

But, not everyone’s flipping tables. Performance’s getting better on PC. So, is Wuchang’s Steam rating getting better? Uh, no. Framerate crash complaints got replaced by rants about censorship. Leenzee? Mum’s the word on why they tweaked the story. Anyway, if you’re on PS5 or Xbox Series X/S, update 1.5 just went live.