While PC and PS5 users have been loving Black Myth: Wukong’s monkey-based mayhem, Xbox gamers have been left waiting for news. The game’s Xbox port was delayed earlier this year due to developer Game Science “optimizing the Xbox Series S/X version to meet our quality standards.” Since then, it hasn’t been talked about.
So, what exactly is the issue? Most people assumed it was something to do with trying to get the game running on the weaker Xbox Series S, and based on this new report, it looks like that may be true.
According to insider eXtas1s, who is usually very reliable when discussing all things Game Pass but less reliable outside of that, the issue is that Black Myth is suffering from a memory leak. Please keep in mind, all quotes from eXtas1s are translated, so may not be completely accurate.
Talking to people at Gamescom, eXtas1s says: “The game is reportedly suffering from a bug known as “Memory Leak,” which can cause significant crashes that could compromise the performance of your Xbox console. Due to this issue, the game has not passed Xbox’s bug detection tests and has therefore been indefinitely delayed until they manage to optimize the game for Series X|S.”
eXtas1s goes on to say that the game has already failed Xbox certification twice
A memory leak occurs when data is loaded into the RAM but isn’t cycled back out correctly, resulting in the RAM becoming fuller and fuller.
The reason this sounds believable is become the PS5 version also appears to suffer from this issue. Based on my own experience and from numerous reports on Reddit, the game’s performance will get worse the longer it is left running. To fix the issue, the game needs to be properly turned off. Some PC users have also noticed the game gobbling up RAM.
This could be causing problems for the Xbox Series S because that console has 6GB less RAM than the Series X and the PS5, meaning it would get effected by the memory leak far quicker. That’s pure speculation, though.
Regardless, Game Science’s continued silence on the Xbox version is a little worrying.