Black Myth: Wukong

About

Black Myth: Wukong (黑神话 悟空, Heishenhua: Wukong) is an upcoming action video game from Game Science, a Chinese indie company formed by former Tencent employees. The game is based on Journey to the West, one of China's Four Great Classical Novels, and centers Sun Wukong, the titular Monkey King, as well as features elements from the book and its own original story. The title has plans to release on next-gen consoles, including the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as well as PC, but an exact release date is still unknown.

History

On August 19th, 2020, Black Myth: Wukong was announced by Hangzhou-based studio Game Science, billed as China's first AAA title.^[3] Utilizing Unreal Engine 4, the game is a retelling of the Chinese mythology epic Journey to the West, allowing players to take control of protagonist Sun Wukong in a soulslike gameplay setting that features combat, exploration and stealth. Upon announcement, the game was still in the pre-alpha stages but has been in development for a little over two years according to the studio.

On August 20th, 13 minutes of pre-alpha gameplay footage was released by Game Science on Bilibili^[1], receiving over 22.3 million views, 2.2 million likes and 1 million shares in roughly five days. Later that same day, the YouTube^[5] channel for Black Myth: Wukong was launched and the original announcement trailer was also posted (shown below).

On Weibo, China's version of Twitter, the CEO of Game Science revealed that they posted the trailer to show the world what they had been working on and to recruit more talent. In a series of tweets on August 20th, Twitter^[2] user ZhugeEX described several aspects of the game and studio, including backgrounds of the staff, previous titles and projects, and the origins of Wukong. According to these tweets (seen below), before working on the game, the studio mainly focused on smaller projects to gain their groundwork, a small team began working on Wukong in 2017. As of 2020, the studio consists of 30 employees and plans to finish the game, but won't show anything new until more significant development has been made.

Online Presence

On August 20th, 2020, Game Science created an official Twitter^[6] account, Instagram^[7] and Facebook^[8] page for the game. That same day on Reddit,^[9] the subreddit /r/BlackMythWukong was created, garnering over 850 members in roughly four days.

Upon its release, the trailer posted by IGN accumulated more than 3 million views (seen below). The trailer has been well-received in the gaming world, and many praised its fluid graphic and gameplay similar to that of the God of War series, to which the developers admitted they drew inspiration from. The game also gained reception among Chinese and Asian audience for its remix of the 1986 classic "Journey to the West" theme song from the TV show Xi You Ji.^[4]

On August 21st, IGN^[11] published an article about the developer responding to the influx of interest around the game's debut, which was later shared to Reddit^[12] that same day. The post on /r/Games received over 2,800 upvotes and 529 comments in roughly three days.

On August 22nd, YouTuber^[10] Maximilian Dood uploaded a reaction video responding to the gameplay trailer (shown below), receiving over 226,000 views, 13,000 likes and 2,000 comments in less than 24 hours.

Search Interest

External references