We can congratulate the Game Science development team on the successful release of Black Myth: Wukong. On Steam they reached the 1st place by online (2.2+ million players), second only to Pubg and overtaking the same Cyberpunk (at the time) in 2 times. Black Myth: Wukong has been at the top of Steam’s most anticipated games for many months, and is one of the few games I’ve been waiting for since it was announced 4 years ago. But did anyone think it would peak at over 2 million players online on launch day? Right now CS 2, Dota 2 and PUBG combined have less online. Analysts say that 88% of the total audience is Chinese. That’s not surprising: Wukong was made in the Middle Kingdom, local executives gave their employees the day off for the game, the story is based on a classic Chinese novel, and the main character is the Monkey King in Asia. Does Black Mythos: Wukong deserve all this hype? I’m not sure. The game is almost great but falls just short of great status.
Wukong begins with an epic in the spirit of the battle with Thor from God of War: Ragnarok. You are the powerful Monkey King, who can transform into a bird, summon clones and even slow down time. In front of us is an army of villains with great mages and colossi that barely fit on the screen. Fighting with them is incredible: characters do pirouettes, the operator chooses luxurious angles, cuts – a minimum. After such a spectacle you want to throw money at the screen and give it 11 out of 10. But only the next fifteen hours that I spent in Wukong, there was no such production – maximum modest cat scenes, and. This game isn’t about story and epic. It’s about focused gameplay. Enjoyable and playable but not outstanding.
One of the fastest-selling games of all time
The creation of the Chinese studio Game Science became one of the fastest-selling games in the industry’s history. More than 10 million people bought it in just three days.
Just for comparison:
- Palworld: 19 million copies in two weeks
- Hogwarts Legacy: 15 million in three months
- Elden Ring: 13 million in one month
- Cyberpunk 2077: 13.7 million in one month
- Baldur’s Gate 3: 20 million in five months.
Why the hype? First, the game is steeped in unique Chinese mythology and is based on the work of Journey to the West, one of the four classic Chinese novels. The game is incredibly well-developed and gives us a detailed look at the local universe. Sure, it’s not at the level of the source material, but it’s no less meticulous.
Second, the unique setting. How many games do you know that put you in the role of the king of the apes with a divine beginning? Very few games like this are on the market, making it so appealing to players. Yes, you can approach it from the side of “once again you are the chosen one, once again the fate of the whole world depends on you” and so on. Then, the novelty will be evaluated differently. But I see no point in that because everything is different here.
But let’s break down the story and what’s going on
It is widely believed in China that no one has ever made a normal movie or TV series based on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. The directors are too much into third-rate comedy or, on the contrary, overdo it with epic pathos. At the same time, Chinese studios have released very few bad games about the monkey king Sun Wukong, even though the setting and story seem to lend themselves to interactivity. But guess what? This problem seems to be solved.
How cheerfully and promisingly Black Myth: Wukong begins! The King of the Apes enters the battlefield in his favorite manner, riding on a cloud. The Heavenly Army, led by Erlan, the nephew of the Jasper Sovereign, with a third eye glowing on his forehead, appears before him. The greatest warrior of heaven arrogantly demands that the king of the apes bend his knee and admit his guilt, threatening to level the mountain of flowers and fruits where his subjects live. In response, we hear the insolent laughter of the Monkey King, who compares Erlan to a pig and promises to bite his third eye, and we realize that this is the son of Sun Wukong!
In the original novel, the entire Pantheon was also against the Monkey King for brazenly eating almost all the peaches from the Garden of Heaven and stealing the Elixir of Immortality.
Here, we also get the chance to try out the King of Monkeys himself in the fight against Erlan. Of course, no one promised us 72 transformations, but you can pull out some hair to create clones, turn your opponent into stone for a while and the famous staff is ready. During the next transformation a hoop falls on Woo-kun’s head – he squeezes the monkey king’s head, gets distracted and misses Erlan’s decisive blow, falls to the top of the mountain and turns to stone. This is where we say goodbye to Sun Wukong, as we get to play as the Man of Destiny (天命人), another monkey who sets out to find the six relics Sun Wukong turned into before his petrifaction.
But let’s pay more attention to the hero Wukong. It seems to be the same monkey, staff, skills, and impetuosity as Sun Wukong, but the main thing is missing – witty remarks and unrestrained wit. “Man of Fate” (one would like to call him “Monkey of Fate”…) is a bit wordy and contemplative. The whole essence of Sun Wukong is in his rebellious mind: not for nothing is one of his nicknames in the novel “Monkey Mind.” Literally translated, the Monkey King’s name means “the one who has realized emptiness” (悟空) – the one who knows the truth of life.
Sun Wukong is a multifaceted and complex character. He combines the rebellious spirit of the troublemaker with the wisdom of the enlightened, and this contradiction makes the reader fall in love with him.
“Journey to the West (西游记) is a satirical novel. Its author, Wu Cheng-en (吴承恩; 1504-1582), poked fun at the ills of Chinese society, turning to fantastical images from Chinese and Buddhist mythology to avoid the attention of the censors.
For example, the third main character in the novel (there are more than 200 in all), who accompanies Xuanzang and Sun Wukong to India in search of the scriptures, is the upright pig Zhu Ba-jie (猪八戒, literally “Pig of the Eight Commandments”). Punished for drunkenness and lust, Zhu Ba-jie takes on the characteristics of the lazy Chinese peasant.
Wu Cheng-en also makes fun of the saint Xuan-tsang (玄奘). This real historical figure traveled west to India in the seventh century. It brought the Tripitaka (a set of Buddhist sutras) back to China, pointing out his helplessness before all sorts of ghosts and werewolves.
What I personally want to praise Black Myth: Wukong for is its authentic sound design, including realistic sounds of forests, rivers and mountains. In the game we can hear traditional Chinese instruments: zither, flute, xun, erhu and bells. They perfectly complement the battles, making them rhythmic, but not boring.
But is everything alright with this game?
The high online hype and inflated expectations probably lead many players. In fact, you should start Wukong with a cold head because it is a good but not outstanding game. It’s nice to fight, explore the world, and meet flashy bosses every 15 minutes – it’s just a shame that minor flaws reveal Game Science’s inexperience.
For example, the game’s visuals are nice but certainly not groundbreaking. Climbing up to the Temple of Crouching Tiger and scaring away the crows pecking for meat is an incredible and frightening sight. So is walking across a wooden bridge built along a mountain. But more often, the game gives a decent picture of the Stellar Blade level. The Chinese studio managed to create one of the most beautiful games. However, some shortcomings are due to the use of the Unreal Engine.
In particular, some of the rocks and their textures can be low-quality. When you look at this high-quality world and then turn the camera and see a poorly rendered piece of rock, it breaks the immersion. But these are minor issues, so I’m personally brave enough to ignore them.
In terms of art design, the situation is ambiguous. The forest in the first chapter is charming, but the desert in the second chapter is yellow and ugly. Still, the gift of Denis Villeneuve, who makes even the sand incredible, is not for everyone. The third chapter throws you into incredibly beautiful mountains, where you can fly in the form of a bat. Only the section with snow-covered peaks and icy lakes is short, followed by a stuffy run through a gray prison. It turns out that an excellent location is always followed by a mediocre one.
The developers made a lot of references to the original characters of the novel when designing the bosses. In the first chapter, I managed to meet the spirit of a wolf (in the game – a werewolf with white skin, Lin Xiu-tsu). And a black bear sitting on a mountain (the second phase of the Black Wind King).
Only in later chapters are there more familiar foes, such as the novel’s iconic White Bone Demon, who assumes the deceptive form of a pretty girl.
Addictive gameplay to the end
The combat system in Black Myth: Wukong is represented by almost standard spellcasting but is biased toward soul games. Playing as a young king, you only have one weapon: a staff. You can improve it by creating different types of staff, for example, one focusing on critical hits and the other on defense.
Personal enemies are generally weak. And there are not that many of them. At the beginning of the game, it feels like a boss race. In the first five hours, I killed 15 enemies with long health bars. Four of them were separated by only a few mobs. You hit one magnificent creature, run down the path, and the next one jumps out of the sky.
Unlike the Souls games, you don’t control your character’s traits. Instead, you get skill points that can be used to improve certain abilities of the protagonist: mystic arts, martial arts, and transformations. This is where the combat system really comes into its own: most of the time, you’ll be hitting the quick attack button until you’ve accumulated enough energy to perform a powerful attack, but using unique abilities between attacks makes combat more fun. These skills also help in the course of combat.
The key is to choose the right skills before the fight. Most of the time, you will use certain skills in the open world, but there are bosses where it is essential to understand their strengths and weaknesses. They have an extended health bar, which is not easy to kill the first few times. And when you die, you’re taken to the nearest altar where your health and the enemies around you are restored. For the most part, the game is reminiscent of Souls.
Of course, all abilities are pumped up, and skilled hands will be used in a build. Players who rely on magic will choose equipment, spirits, and branches of pumping that increase mana and strengthen spells. As a result, some bosses can be spammed with perks: summon doppelgangers, freeze the target, become a fire mage, and hit, hit, hit. The enemy has no time to move, and half of their HP is gone.
Endless battles with bosses and searching for secrets are fun, but there are also enough drawbacks. For example, it’s inconvenient to interrupt combos, there are stupid invisible walls at every step, and mechanics regularly fail. What are those narrow beams that archers usually stand on? According to the idea, you should block arrows with a staff, but in defense mode, the hero is almost uncontrollable, so he falls to the lower floor. Annoying!
These little flaws prevent Wukong from being called a great game. The developers lacked the experience to get the mechanics right and create levels without invisible obstacles. In the end, the novelty is just good.
Probably, the Chinese will ignore the flaws when they see the characters from Journey to the West and thousands of references to local folklore. But only our players will recognize the legend of the King of Monkeys and appreciate the magic of the plot. The gameplay will seem excellent but lacks a touch of genius.
What makes me happy here is the way the developers play with your abilities. As I said, you have to find your own approach to each boss (and they are here every 15-20 minutes of varying difficulty).
For example, one of the most powerful abilities allows you to freeze enemies briefly. Later in the campaign, however, there will be bosses not affected by this ability, and it will play into their hands. The main character can also create copies of himself for a while, but one of the bosses can easily turn them against you. Little nuances like that in each battle make it a unique experience. And every fight really feels different. Of course, the toughest bosses won’t drain your soul like FromSoftware’s hits, but they will require their own 5-10 runs. Fortunately, there are ways to make it easier, such as finding a secret location and obtaining an artifact that will be invaluable in the fight against the Yellow Wind.
Anyway, there is no open world here. The developers gave us semi-open locations, sometimes big, sometimes not so big. You have to swing through them, but you don’t have the freedom like in Elden Ring or Dark Souls.
However, all the locations are unique in their own way and have their own secrets. For example, in one of the starting locations, when you go to pick another flower, an enemy will crawl out from underneath it. A little later, a giant frog jumps out of the tall grass. The game has many such elements, and they add a certain suddenness. Stylistically, the locations differ from each other: here, you can find swamps, jungles, forests, and deserts.
The only thing that really annoyed me was the amount of invisible walls. There’s an insane amount of them, and you can’t always figure out how to get to the next secret. The problem is that you see a direct route that you can usually get through. But no, the developers don’t see it that way.
What about optimization?
I played Black Myth: Wukong on a PC with RTX 4070 and had no performance issues (until I turned on max mode with RTX). During the whole time, I encountered only a few small bugs, but never once fell under the textures. How many times did I get stuck in places near invisible walls, thinking that there should be a passage? But during the game there were stable 60 frames on cinematic settings, so the optimization on the PC I was very satisfied.
The graphics are excellent and comparable to the “hardware” required. For those who want to check their hardware, Steam has a separate benchmark from the developers. However, not all is well. Judging by the reviews, the game works on PlayStation 5 with subsidence, which makes the console work hard.
In Chinese artistic thought, speaking of the new by referring to the old has been prevalent since ancient times. A Chinese artist can boldly take a canvas of another master and continue it, leaving his signature. The canvas can be completed with hundreds of different brushes, each respecting the previous one but trying to add something new to the overall composition.
Game Science, in its own way, has managed to continue the canvas of the history of the king of the apes, leaving its signature and seal on it. The game authors showed us a new quiet and thoughtful Sun Woo-kun (although his name is different) who learns together with the players.
China was probably the first worthy embodiment of “Journey to the West” outside of literature. Unexpectedly, although there were many attempts, it was not in the cinema—and expectedly, Chinese gamers were delighted by such a plagiarization of the story they knew from childhood.
