Only 33% of Wo Long Xbox players have beaten the first boss

Wo Long launched into Xbox Game Pass last week, and the first boss fight in Team Ninja's new action-RPG is an already infamous early difficulty spike... so much so that only 33% of Xbox players have beaten it so far.

Looking at the Wo Long achievements, we see that the very first story-related unlock, Journey's Beginning, has only been popped by a third of players on Xbox. Wo Long's first proper boss has been giving players a hard time since the demo dropped ahead of launch, and it would appear that most players on Xbox still haven't managed to emerge victorious from the first major battle the game throws at you to be able to reach and enjoy the rest of one of the best games on Game Pass.

Most Wo Long Xbox players haven't killed the first boss

It's safe to say that a major factor here is Wo Long's availability in Xbox Game Pass, with any subscribers free to jump into Team Ninja's new adventure and try it out. There's a good chance that many players will simply bounce off the game and never come back after being knocked around by the challenging first boss, and some may not even have made it that far before deciding the game wasn't for them and giving up. Compare the Xbox numbers to other platforms where the game isn't available as part of a subscription service and there's a huge disparity that backs up this notion — Journey's Beginning sits at a 33% unlock rate on Xbox, compared to a whopping 85% on both PlayStation and Steam, where players have had to buy the game and are therefore naturally more committed to getting through it.

There then follows a pretty steep but steady drop-off in unlocks for the rest of the 17 story-based achievements, gradually falling to just 2% by the time we get to the final story pops — that lower tail end is to be expected when the game has barely been out a week and many will still be working their way through it. As you might expect from a dedicated achievement-hunting community, tracked TrueAchievements players are off to a considerably better start, with roughly half of those with Wo Long on their tags now past the first hurdle. Interestingly, though, TA player unlocks actually dip below the global Xbox level slightly in the mid-to-late-game, before evening out to the same 2% unlock rate as the wider Xbox pool on the last few achievements.

Are you playing Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty? How are you getting on — first boss down yet? Let us know in the comments below!

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Written by Luke Albigés

Luke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.