Black Myth: Wukong fans concerned about PC version’s potential performance issue

The PC version of Black Myth: Wukong features a Benchmark Tool that uses Denuvo, leading to concerns about the game’s performance.

Anticipation for Black Myth: Wukong began building as soon as Chinese developer Game Science revealed the first trailer in August 2020. All these years later, the title is gearing up for its debut on PC and consoles, but some hopeful players have started expressing reservations.

Steam listings previously confirmed the action RPG would launch with anti-piracy software Denuvo attached. Now that the game’s official Benchmark Tool has become available on PC, fans noticed that it, too, makes use of Denuvo.

This has raised concerns about Black Myth: Wukong’s potential performance troubles due to claims suggesting the divisive DRM technology hinders performance.

Game Science

Responses beneath a post from Pirat_Nation about the DRM tool indicate many players believe Denuvo could hurt Black Myth: Wukong’s chances of running smoothly.

Reads one reply, “I mean, if Denuvo decreases its performance in the real game, it [has] to decrease [it] in the benchmark too.”

Another user commented the following, “It makes sense tho. If the benchmark doesn’t have Denuvo, it would perform much better than the game that has it.”

The suggestion that Denuvo directly impacts a game’s framerate remains speculative on a game-by-game basis. However, parent company Irdeto insists the system has “no perceptible effect on game performance nor is anti-tamper to blame for any game crashes of genuine executables.”

In the past, DRM versus DRM-less tests run on experiences such as Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil Village have shown Denuvo marginally impacts performance. But at the time of writing, there is no concrete answer on how Denuvo will affect Black Myth: Wukong on PC.

Game Science’s long-awaited role-playing title hits PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on Tuesday, August 20.