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VGC: Black Myth: Wukong is China's most important premium game

Draugoth

Gold Member
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With the rise of China’s video games industry gaining a foothold in the Western market, Black Myth: Wukong surely stands as its shining beacon.

While its subject matter is unambiguously Chinese, based on the country’s most popular 16th-century novel Journey to the West that has no shortage of adaptations across media, looks and feels unlike anything many had expected to come out of China, an industry that has predominantly associated with either cheap imitations or free-to-play mobile titles with egregious gacha mechanics.

Since its first trailer debuted back in 2020, showing 13 minutes of pre-alpha gameplay, it has sent tongues wagging, garnering over a million views on developer Game Science’s YouTube channel and over 10 million views via IGN to date.

Since then, we’ve only seen a continuing rise of games from China finding audiences beyond its borders, notably the extremely popular Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, both developed by Shangahi-based developer HoyoVerse, while the big players Tencent and NetEase have been busy acquiring studios both in the West and Japan. Nonetheless, many of these haven’t escaped their free-to-play live service trappings, wuxia-inspired battle royale Naraka: Bladepoint actually going free-to-play earlier this year.



Black Myth: Wukong, however, is resolutely a single-player premium title intended to be released as a one-time purchase. And it certainly looks the part, with production values you might expect from a Western AAA studio, its dark fantasy reimagining of the Monkey King, known here as the Destined One, combined with precise and brutal combat making it stand toe to toe with a FromSoftware title. Things have only continued to get more impressive with every new in-depth video from the Hangzhou-based studio including its switch to Unreal Engine 5 in 2022.

Yet aside from these videos, information had also been quite scarce, perhaps due to the pandemic but also a lack of communication with the West (according to its Steam page, Black Myth: Wukong is presently a self-published release).

However, its presence at Gamescom, where the public were reportedly queueing for four hours to get hands-on, and the debut of its English dubbed trailer at The Game Awards, is an indication that Game Science is gearing up to the final stretch of its long journey to the West when Black Myth: Wukong launches on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in August worldwide.

“It certainly looks the part, with production values you might expect from a Western AAA studio, combined with precise and brutal combat making it stand toe to toe with a FromSoftware title.”

And even while there is an interest in premium titles in China via platforms like Steam (albeit with heavy restrictions), free-to-play remains the dominant way to access games back home, making it more imperative for Black Myth to find a global audience if it’s to become a success.

So what can we expect from the game itself? As mentioned before, it definitely takes inspiration from Soulslikes, that is unforgiving combat where heals are limited, resting means enemies respawning, and repeated death is the path to mastery, which of course culminates in epic boss fights against powerful creatures of Chinese myth.

You are, however, also a nimble monkey man with a stick, making fights faster than the slower, more methodical encounters of Dark Souls, while perfectly-timed dodges slow down time, much like in Bayonetta. There’s also a system more akin to Nioh where you can change between different fighting stances, each giving you different attacks, combos and timings.

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That’s not counting the cooldown-based magical abilities also at your disposal, whether turning enemies to stone letting you freely wail on them or even transforming into a more powerful damage-dealing beast. So there’s no shortage of tools and techniques to suit your play style, even if this is a more character and narrative-focused game than a typical Soulslike (Sekiro does however also spring to mind).

Fighting for the same territory as FromSoftware is, of course, no easy task, especially in the same year we’re also expecting Elden Ring’s much anticicpated expansion. But where Game Science benefits over the likes of Lords of the Fallen or Lies of P, which make unfavourable comparisons by being so nakedly derivative of Dark Souls and Bloodborne respectively, is that it can mine from its own culture and myths, while there’s also an irreverent tone that’s befitting the mischievous Monkey King.

Its latest trailer certainly gives more of a flavour of the kind of oddball characters and fearsome enemies we can expect, from a dwarven Pinhead-type person, an anthropomorphic tiger, a bird with an old man’s head, to gargantuan beasts, including a winged bug-like creature that our Destined One can be seen riding. In other words, a whole lot more than just the stereotypical dragons, though there’s one of those too.

Whether or not Black Myth: Wukong makes a mark on the Soulslike genre, its release in 2024, which will also be the Chinese zodiac year of the dragon, a symbol of nobleness, honour, luck, and success, it will almost certainly be an important moment for the future of premium Chinese games.

Source
 

Ribi

Member
I remember all the "oh it's vaporware" "never coming out!" "Can't wait for the downgrade"

Seriously why are "gamers " such bitches when it comes to anything that looks ambitious or different? Always the same shit, oh no way they can do that it's all bullshit. Fucking say yes to that shit, we want more BG3s not more Cod.
 
I remember all the "oh it's vaporware" "never coming out!" "Can't wait for the downgrade"

Seriously why are "gamers " such bitches when it comes to anything that looks ambitious or different? Always the same shit, oh no way they can do that it's all bullshit. Fucking say yes to that shit, we want more BG3s not more Cod.

Aside from art direction and graphics tech, all I'm seeing is another Dark Souls-knockoff.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Aside from art direction and graphics tech, all I'm seeing is another Dark Souls-knockoff.

I would also point out that Chinese folktales, mythos, stories, etc go way deeper than journey to the west. Another rehash of this story doesn’t excite me much.

PS: I’ll come clean, I thought it was vaporware.
 
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Ribi

Member
Aside from art direction and graphics tech, all I'm seeing is another Dark Souls-knockoff.
The art direction is miles ahead of anything souls. The gameplay seems to play on the monkey Kings imitation of skills of things you've killed. It was more than dark souls, the targeting system and dodge rolling is similar but they expanded on dodging with the staff.

Also wtf are you even supposed to do with a third person action game? Not have a lock on key and swing mechanics? Fuck even donkey Kong 64 had that
 
No idea if it's going to be good, but gott damm is it awesome to look at. Keeping an eye on this one.
This is exactly what I think. It had a great debut a while back and it's looked better and better every time I've seen it. Not chomping at the bit for it, but it certainly is impressive what they've shown and it could very well be a great game.
 

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
I wonder if it will be better than Lies Of P. I'm surprised it's taken Korean and Chinese developers this long to make an impact in the single player games market.
 
I remember all the "oh it's vaporware" "never coming out!" "Can't wait for the downgrade"

Seriously why are "gamers " such bitches when it comes to anything that looks ambitious or different? Always the same shit, oh no way they can do that it's all bullshit. Fucking say yes to that shit, we want more BG3s not more Cod.
I mean.. this was also at the height of things like Abandoned and The day before. Not really "bitches". Just legitimately concerned.
 

ungalo

Member
I remember all the "oh it's vaporware" "never coming out!" "Can't wait for the downgrade"

Seriously why are "gamers " such bitches when it comes to anything that looks ambitious or different? Always the same shit, oh no way they can do that it's all bullshit. Fucking say yes to that shit, we want more BG3s not more Cod.
I was among the people saying that not going to lie, not because i don't want ambitious games lol. A new studio with a production of that scale is just a rarity, especially for a solo game.

I'm glad i was wrong about the game, just like i was wrong for Atomic Heart (even if the game has its problems).
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
No single game is the most important. If it flops it'll be forgotten in a week, if not I guess it could pave the way for more from the studio/other studios like every other successful game. That's it. Hope it turns out as good as it's shown.
 
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Del_X

Member
Given the abysmal and “safe” output of AAA western devs, I hope the Chinese do to video games what they’ve done with hifi audio.
 

Aenima

Member
Will ResetEra boycott this game because it comes from a communist country!? :pie_grinning_sweat:
Im pretty sure they are already boycotting it, but not for that reason. Or maybe its SHiftUp? dont even know, the asylum just boycotts everething this day.

Im hyped for this game since it 1st trailer years ago, game already changed engine and keeps looking better and better. Just hope they do a good job for the console ports.
 
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Hohenheim

Member
This has some of the most awesome designs i've seen in a long time. Looks really good gameplay wise too.
And if the graphics are as good as in these trailers, then damn.. gonna be a blast.
One of my pals still believe for it's all a hoax of sorts, because it looks to good to be true. We shall see!
 
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Gideon

Member
My most anticipated game of 2024, my only complaint so far is the damage numbers in the middle of the screen, I'd prefer if they were on the HP bar of the enemy.
 

StereoVsn

Member
That's my biggest worry. We haven't seen a ton of exploration outside of many boss encounters.
Wait, Boss Rush? I am out, I like exploration, and finding interesting stuff which is why I liked Elden Ring and didn't really like any of the previous games... except for Demon Souls (different vibe on this vs Dark Souls).
 

Gideon

Member
Wait, Boss Rush? I am out, I like exploration, and finding interesting stuff which is why I liked Elden Ring and didn't really like any of the previous games... except for Demon Souls (different vibe on this vs Dark Souls).
I think there's exploration in this game, for example at 17:07 of this video there's a secret boss you can only find by exploring and doing a particular thing (that's what I heard atleast)
 

StereoVsn

Member
I think there's exploration in this game, for example at 17:07 of this video there's a secret boss you can only find by exploring and doing a particular thing (that's what I heard atleast)

That’s good, but certainly not what I would be looking for. I guess we will wait for reviews.
 
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