Black Myth: Wukong – Among the countries of the Writer bloc, China is the country with the longest and most extensive cultural history, with many famous works recognized by the world such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber or The Art of War by Sun Tzu …

China’s gaming industry is currently among the fastest growing in the world, with market share revenue (PC, Mobile and Console) accounting for 45.5 billion USD ( 2022 data from Niko Partners – NV).

Despite possessing such ideal conditions, China still does not possess any outstanding “offline” game brand, also known as single-player game.

Even their famous literary works have become famous game brands but are made by… Japanese game companies, such as Dynasty Warriors ( Three Kingdoms ) and Suidoken ( Water Margin )…

Things began to change in 2024, when Game Science released Black Myth: Wukong after many years of development and achieved great success in recent times. It not only had an important meaning for China, but also “awakened” the world’s offline game market when the “woke pandemic” was being abused, causing a loss of sympathy, aesthetics and causing countless games to “self-destruct”, leading to the consequence of many studios closing down, the workforce becoming increasingly unemployed.

Black Myth: Wukong also shows that the big game markets in China and Korea, which are famous and extremely popular in developing online games and mobile games, suddenly “turned around” to invest in making single-player games of quality that are not inferior to famous studios in the West, such as products like Lies of Pi , Stella Blade … and achieved unexpected success in terms of finance and reputation.

This brings a positive signal to the offline game segment with the “AAA” stamp (games with “huge” investment capital, development team of several hundred people, huge marketing costs – NV), which has not been considered a “fertile investment land” in the past few years.

What makes Black Myth: Wukong a global phenomenon, a “boost” for the stagnant world gaming industry?

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The magical world of Journey to the West!

Game Science has invested very carefully in the player experience in many aspects, allowing them to immerse themselves in the world of Journey to the West as realistically as possible: from images, music to costumes, weapons, characters and scenery are all built in great detail and appeal.

Right from the first segments of the game, players are captivated by the game’s unique art style imbued with Chinese culture. With the power of Unreal Engine 5, the landscape and architecture of temples and shrines in Black Myth: Wukong are designed to be stunningly beautiful and bring an extremely “cinematic” feeling, enough to satisfy and fill any imaginative mind!

Scenes that seem to come out of ink paintings, and architectural structures that stand out in most of the chapters are meticulously and respectfully built by the Game Science team. What makes these “super projects” so special is that they are all modeled after famous Chinese landscapes. The first chapter is reminiscent of the famous tourist area in Guilin. The second chapter brings the atmosphere of the famous Xinjiang desert.

The most “terrifying” must be “Xiaoxitian” in Chapter 3 – where players will be amazed by the Temple as if it was copied exactly from real life. Even more fantastic, this Temple not only acts as a background, but in some main scenes, players will be shrunk down and “travel” in that very Xiaoxitian, with a level of detail that will leave the writer stunned!

Thanks to this grandeur, the cultural promotion of Black Myth: Wukong has helped boost tourism in dozens of ancient Chinese locations, increasing sales by more than 50%. The influence is truly impressive!

Not only attracting players with its excellent scenery, the “top-notch” graphics of Black Myth: Wukong also fascinates players with the meticulousness of the armor pieces worn by Marquis of Heaven. Readers may not know that Black Myth: Wukong was initially developed on Unreal Engine 4, but Game Science unexpectedly postponed its launch and invested an additional year just to… bring all the best things to Unreal Engine 5, thanks to its superior technology. That is when players will be overwhelmed by the splendor of the battle armors in the game.

Once opening the inventory interface, the writer always has to admire the “coolness” that makes him think he is the reincarnation of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven. Every curved line of the pattern on each eye of the armor, to the sparkling sparkle of rare materials that make up the solemnity of the battle armor. This detail of course does not only focus on the equipment interface, but gamers can completely “check” it with the game’s “extremely tense” photo mode system. Game Sciecne seems to know how to “please” its fans in this fashion aspect.

Speaking of the inventory, the game also takes care of the “internal” part: from the menu interface, icons to things like inventory, encyclopedia, skill table, equipment, designed to be easy to see thanks to the reasonable and neat information arrangement, not confusing like recent “AAA” games, like Starfield is a typical example.

Along with the graphics, for fans of the movie Journey to the West (1986), we will meet again the “brand” song from this movie in the game – Celestial Symphony , it is arranged and orchestrated in a more modern way but still retains the majestic and grandiose quality as before!

Not stopping at each main theme song, each chapter in Journey to the West that the player will travel through has suitable background music, used as a storytelling technique to elevate the player’s emotions to the highest level. Sometimes the meaning and lyrics are like teachings and highlight the message of the game (Chapter 2), sometimes they are deep and touching, accompanied by a tragic love “MV” (Chapter 4), sometimes the bustling drum beats are urging and full of heroism but leave a breathless emptiness (Chapter 5), further deepening the memories of the film’s fans.

Five hundred years after the pilgrimage, Black Myth: Wukong will still let players meet familiar iconic characters that made up the Journey to the West brand such as Yang Jian, the Four Heavenly Kings, Black Bear Spirit, Pigsy… These characters are designed to be both beautiful (Binh Binh), cute and unique (Pigsy), and brave like Tiger General, Red Boy, Yang Jian…

It is known that the character designs in Black Myth: Wukong , especially the female characters, are all modeled after voice actresses with “flower” looks, pleasing to the eye, unlike the current trend of making games from the West, which mostly intentionally promotes female characters that are either rough or rough (although similar technology is also applied) and are promoted by the media as “beautiful models” obviously!

Besides the main cast of stars whose names are familiar to fans of Journey to the West , players also encounter countless impressively rendered monsters: from wolves, rats, crows, snakes to “super-fantastical” species such as yakshas, ​​dragons, and demons from the underworld, not inferior to blockbusters like Elden Ring , Dark Souls or Bloodborne from FromSoftware.

With statistics obtained from the available Travelogue in the game, the total number of characters in Black Myth: Wukong is up to more than… 200 characters, of all genres.

Speaking of our main character, Sun Wukong.

The familiar “monkey tricks” on screen are recreated in Black Myth: Wukong and are “performed” by the players themselves, very refreshing.

From the fast stick-wielding and arrow-blocking performances to the “ever-changing” length of the Ruyi Jingu Bang when fighting, or the famous stick-climbing technique that truly satisfies fans of the movie Journey to the West.

The magic system of Black Myth: Wukong is impeccable: both beautiful and effective, although there are some spells that are… too strong, enough to use them until the second half of the game, such as Immobilize, which is often used to “block” the opponent’s pressure points, or with the Pluck of Many spell, which when upgraded to the maximum, can allow players to “without lifting a finger” and still be able to defeat many mini bosses.

Game Science has invested carefully in the player experience in many aspects, allowing them to immerse themselves in the world of Journey to the West as realistically as possible.

A great Souls-like game!

The core of Black Myth: Wukong is obviously still the outstanding combat scenes. In the trailers released at the beginning before the game was released, the game left a lot of doubts from players: Is this a “souls-like” game? It looks “like” but “not” and… can’t be sure.

And when the game was released, Black Myth: Wukong could be seen as a “variant” of the “Souls-like” form, made “lighter” but not necessarily easier, often referred to as “Souls-lite”.

Because of its popularity and large number of players in the past 5 years, it is understandable that Black Myth: Wukong inherits the characteristics of this “souls-like” game. The difficult part is that Game Science must know how to balance between “learning” and “copying”, because there are many “examples” out there that show that reaching the realm of Souls-game from FromSoftware is almost impossible.

So the secret is to “learn” and “combine” to ensure balance, both reducing the pickiness of players and creating a new path where we may have a sequel to Black Myth: Wukong that is even more groundbreaking.

The “learning” that the game has is also very refined and is mainly “getting used to” in nature. For example, the combat system has a rhythm and relies on the stamina bar, but the dependence is not as heavy as in Souls-games, but on the contrary, only plays an important role in the first two Chapters.

Once you get used to the game’s paced combat system, you won’t need to worry too much about stamina, but instead focus on trading moves with bosses like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice did.

Leveling up also does not require collecting too much currency (Will), because the player will not face any form of punishment after “dying”, or even “erasing points” and trying another way of developing strength. The player simply returns to the nearest shrine. This somewhat reduces the pressure of confronting difficult bosses, while allowing the player to have many options to optimize their gameplay.

Speaking of diversity, Black Myth: Wukong brings another learning from the Nioh series , the stance system includes 3 different stances: Smash stance, Pillar stance and Thrust stance; each stance will include two development paths and players can also flexibly change between these three stances during combat. Thereby, even though the weapons only revolve around two types: Spear and Staff, the player’s creativity is still not too limited.

In addition to the combat skill system, the character also has several pages dedicated to internal stats/skills and various auxiliary magic/transformation skills with a huge total.

Although the script of Black Myth: Wukong is written as a sequel to the post-Journey to the West period, the events and boss fights of the game will always make players recall every epic moment in the childhood movie, sometimes you even have to remember how they happened to “pass the level” more easily!

As in chapter two, when the player fights against the Yellow Wind Monster, a monster with the ultimate move Tam Muoi Than Phong that shakes the three worlds and blinds Ton Ngo Khong (story/movie), this monster’s sandstorm is so formidable that it is very difficult to destroy him. However, if the player has ever watched Journey to the West , they will know that there are special magic weapons that help “suppress” these demons, making the battle easier. And that is when the game “opens up” to the player that the game is not linear, easy or difficult depends on how the player explores the world that the developer has worked hard to build.

Black Myth: Wukong is like a “Souls-like” variation, made “lighter” but not easy.

Dark, full of Buddhist philosophy of life!

Unlike Journey to the West which focuses on the journey to the West of Tang Monk and his disciples to obtain Buddhist scriptures, Black Myth: Wukong focuses on the fate of the characters after the events in Journey to the West .

The game divides many stories into chapters, full of metaphors and satire criticizing the reality of life. This feature is quite similar to another great Chinese work: Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio .

The story is adapted, darker and sadder than Journey to the West , many fans may like this because they leave a lasting impression after experiencing it. For example, the story of Elder Kim Tri and his greed for fame, the unfinished love story from the misunderstanding of Heaven of our Tru Bat Gioi, or the tragic story of the scholar and the little fox… Right or wrong, good or evil, it is really difficult to decide with one word!

The beauty and uniqueness of Black Myth: Wukong when presenting tragic stories but full of life philosophy is that the game “spreads” a lot of information through many different forms, attracting the attention and “collection” from the players.

It could be the collection of NPCs’ stories, the hidden descriptions in the murals, the “additions” from the items, or more interestingly, the short animated films ending each chapter that are carefully invested in many famous schools of painting, including classical Chinese painting schools, modern Chinese animation, Ghibli anime style, or some films that are completely different from the rest, such as Chapter 2 – the story of the scholar and the little fox, using stop-motion animation.

The game divides many stories into chapters, full of metaphors, satirical criticism of real life.

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Just a little more and it would be a masterpiece.

If players have never touched the works about Journey to the West , then Black Myth: Wukong will make you confused, very confused because there is no necessary introduction or narrative about the mythological context in Journey to the West. That is what makes the game not really appreciated by critics from the West.

The main difference is that East Asian culture and mythology in general and Chinese culture in particular are too dense, leading to the core meanings of Taoism and Buddhism being conveyed through very vague messages in the plot of Black Myth: Wukong , making them extremely “hard to swallow” for Western critics.

Not to mention, each Chapter of the game is a somewhat independent story, so it is even more difficult to link it together in a clear main and secondary storyline. This is also related to the author’s own experience with Dante’s Inferno nearly 15 years ago, based on the Divine Comedy by the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri, and the result was: “I don’t understand anything!”

Another slightly “unpleasant” point of the game is that the invisible walls and “impassable borders” are not presented properly. For example, many places in the game that you think you can still go through are blocked, but there are places that look clearly “impassable” but actually… open up hidden areas!

In terms of difficulty and challenge, Black Myth: Wukong is not a traditional “easy” action game, but follows the “Souls-lite” model as mentioned, so many people may find the game too difficult and deadlocked, when there is no clear mission guide or map, and encounter many bosses that are too strong. Fortunately, this has been somewhat overcome thanks to the effect of a large community of players, always sharing secrets to help even “rookies” to “try-hard” to experience the game in a relatively complete way.

The game’s upgrade system is designed quite annoyingly, especially at the beginning of the game, when basic stats are combined with skills and spells, forcing players to “sacrifice” survival stats for skills or spells, which limits options when fighting bosses.

Besides, the introduction of NPC skills and spells to the main character (Destiny One) is quite bland and forced, feeling like “oh I have something cool, here it is for you, try it”, while in the past, Sun Wukong had to seek a master to cultivate until his head was bald.

And finally, the game’s optimization on PS5, the only console that can play Black Myth: Wukong from day one: terrible!

This is not the first time the writer has experienced continuous frame drops (fps) like this while playing a game, but it is the first time it has dropped straight to the “bottom” like Black Myth: Wukong , which is even more annoying when you are facing difficult bosses.

Black Myth: Wukong is not a traditional “easy” action game, but a Souls-lite, so many people may find the game too difficult and deadlocked.