Black Myth: Wukong, What’s so Intriguing about it?
Written By Joseph Li and David Tang
What is Black Myth?
Black Myth is a new game that came out in August which has taken the Gaming community by storm. Being a Chinese AAA game, people expected a great game since most other games built by Chinese editors had high-quality storylines and graphics such as PUBG Mobile, Genshin Impact etc. When Black Myth came out, it certainly lived up to its expectations. The story takes place after the main story of Journey to the West, where Wukong is made Buddha because of his role in the Journey to the West. Wukong however, doesn’t accept the Buddha concepts that come with it and refuses to work for the ancient gods. This causes the Gods’ dismay, who send Erlang Shen to kill him.
Quality (Graphics, Gameplay, Story)
Black Myth: Wukong can be played on the Xbox Series X, PS5, and PC, consisting of a long journey in the game to collect the six relics of Sun Wukong. In Black Myth, each relic takes one chapter to obtain, and each has around 10-20 bosses and a final boss, which are:
- The Black Wind Bear
- The Black Loong
- The YellowBrow
- The Duskveil
- The Yaksha King
- Erland Shen or The Great Sage’s Broken Shell (Depends on the good or bad ending)
Statistics (Controversy?)
From launch, Black Myth had up to 4.5 million pre-orders/sales across all platforms, generating over 1.5 billion yuan despite the 570 million yuan it cost to make, almost flipping the prices. This however came from a risk because the game was priced at 299 yuan and it attracted attention from gamers worldwide, particularly former Counter-Strike and former Valorant player, shroud, who peaked with 34 thousand viewers while playing Black Myth. There was one point at launch where there were 2.2 million concurrent players on Black Myth, the second-most ever recorded onto the Steam chart.
All things were looking excellent for Black Myth but it turns out, there is some controversy brewing in the background. It was revealed that streamers who were actively playing the game received bribes and notes from the makers of Black Myth, Game Science. Game Science had streamers who were given early access to Black Myth and were not allowed to discuss certain topics such as “feminist propaganda” while playing the game, below is the list from the original document posted on social media, according to SCMP:
Do NOT insult other influencers or players.
Do NOT use any offensive language/humour.
Do NOT include politics, violence, nudity, feminist propaganda, fetishization, and other content that instigates negative discourse.
Do NOT use trigger words such as ‘quarantine’ or ‘isolation’ or ‘COVID-19’.
Do NOT discuss content related to China’s game industry policies, opinions, news, etc.
The idea of not mentioning feminist propaganda is because Journey to the West doesn’t mention any female characters or female characters that show feminine characteristics, and this is why Game Science was trying to get streamers to avoid talking about feminist propaganda.
Why has Black Myth done so well?
We can connect things from the very start. Black Myth was announced in August 2020, amid the peak of the pandemic. It was a simple trailer, and its popularity exploded. Black Myth was the first AAA game to be released by the Chinese Industry, so expectations were high, especially when you look at the other AAA games released around the same time. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is the spinoff to the big hit Marvel’s Spider-Man from 2018 and it was booming, Black Myth put up something bigger for the entire gaming community.
Back to the present day, Black Myth was released around a year after Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 came out. Although Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 offers more content and better gameplay, Black Myth seems like it doesn’t fall out of the conversation.
The game has shown great performance running on all of the next generation consoles, although today the Xbox Series X is not as popular as the PS5, the game has made massive numbers on both consoles as well as PC. Steam also made a chunk of money from this and it caused many games to be overshadowed by Black Myth as it was shown more in shops.
Conclusion
In China, Black Myth is currently the most talked-about game. An interview from the national television of China with the producer of Black Myth explains the game, what it means to China, and what it means to Chinese Culture.
Many Chinese fans get emotional while playing the game just because of one small detail. When you enter the game, the page usually shows the Chinese language. However, Black Myth changed this to 語言(language) – English.
A quote says it all: “He (Wukong) saved the Chinese Movie Industry, he saved the Chinese Cartoon Industry, and now he is saving the Chinese Gaming Industry.” From the impact of this game, we can see the power and attention Ancient Chinese Stories bring to the table. Subsequently, this also shows the ability of the Chinese gaming industry as a whole because it shows that they can accomplish such performances.