Black Myth: Wukong, developed by GameScience. It is one of the most visually stunning action games of recent years. It impresses with its breathtaking visuals, exhilarating combat and unique setting rooted in rich Chinese culture.
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Black Myth: Wukong is one of the most beautiful games ever created. The level of detail is astonishing from the designed environments to the real-time deformation of snow as the character moves through it.
The game’s art direction is impressive with environments that range from lush forests to snow-covered landscapes each filled with details that make them feel alive.
The game draws heavily from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en. The setting and characters are steeped in Chinese mythology.
However the game assumes a level of familiarity with the source material that some players may not have leading to moments of confusion regarding character relationships.
The combat in Black Myth: Wukong is a perfect mix of reflex-based gameplay and strategic resource management. Players must balance their use of the Focus Meter, which builds up with successful attacks and dodges, and can be spent on powerful combo attacks.
The variety of combat tools and abilities at your disposal is vast including spells, transformations and Spirit Skills.
The game features a transformation mechanic that allows the protagonist, The Destined One to morph into powerful creatures he has defeated.
Each transformation comes with a completely new moveset. Spirit Skills earned by defeating powerful enemies, provide additional combat options that can be leveled up, ensuring they remain useful throughout the game. These skills allow for single, powerful attacks that can turn the tide in tough battles.
Boss battles in Black Myth: Wukong are some of the most challenging moments in the game. These fights require players to learn attack patterns, optimize their loadouts and execute precise timing to succeed.
The game’s story is a loose continuation of Journey to the West, following The Destined One, a monkey on a quest to locate the six relics of Wukong.
While the story has its moments particularly the beautifully animated vignettes at the end of each chapter, the main narrative often falls flat.
The protagonist’s muteness and the underdeveloped side characters make it difficult to become emotionally invested in the journey.
Each of the six chapters culminates in an animated vignette that tells the antagonist’s backstory. These vignettes are a highlight each rendered in a distinct art style, ranging from storybook illustrations to stop-motion animation.
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Black Myth: Wukong is plagued by technical issues. Players on PC, even those with high-end setups like the GeForce RTX 4090 have reported numerous crashes, some of which occurred after defeating tough bosses.
Other issues include characters randomly switching languages, dialogue audio dropping out during cutscenes and poorly synchronized lip movements in the English dub.
These problems detract from the overall experience and can be frustrating during critical moments.
Upon its release Black Myth: Wukong quickly became the most-played AAA game on its first day of availability on Steam.
The game recorded 1.4 million concurrent players within just three hours of its release surpassing previous records held by globally popular games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3.
By the evening of its release day the game had reached 1.8 million concurrent players, making it the third most-played game on Steam at that time.
This achievement placed it just behind PUBG: Battlegrounds and Palworld in terms of concurrent player numbers.
AAA games are typically produced by mid-sized or major publishers with substantial development and marketing budgets. Before this, China, despite being the world’s largest gaming market and home to the richest gaming company, Tencent lacked a globally recognized AAA title.
The game was in development for six years with fans eagerly awaiting its release. The anticipation was so high that nearly 1,000 live-streaming sessions were set up on Bilibili, as soon as the game became available.
The game’s release was accompanied by a massive marketing push with huge posters of the Monkey King, the game’s protagonist displayed at a 20,000-square-meter complex in Shanghai.
Initially analysts predicted that the game would need to sell 5 million copies to be considered a success. There is now speculation that Black Myth: Wukong could reach 10 million copies in sales.
Cyberpunk 2077, developed by Polish game studio CD Projekt sold 25 million copies by October 2023, while Elden Ring, from Japan’s FromSoftware reached the same sales volume by June 2024.
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