Gaming News & Opinions

Black Myth: Wu Kong Could Be China’s Breakout Video Game

Black Myth: Wu Kong has been getting incredibly popular lately, and could help Chinese developers to break into western markets.

  • Black Myth: Wu Kong has been gaining a lot of popularity online.
  • The game comes from a Chinese developer who has worked previously on two other titles on mobile and PC.
  • This game’s popularity could be what the Chinese games industry needs to break into the western market in a big way.

A new game is turning some heads online today. Black Myth: Wu Kong is a stunning-looking game, coming from a Chinese indie studio simply known as Game Science Studio.

God of War director Cory Barlog joins the chorus of raving opinions praising the gameplay reveal. | Source: Twitter/Cory Barlog

Despite being an indie studio with only two other games under their belt, Game Science Studio is seemingly putting out a premium gaming experience. Watch the video for the full 13-minute gameplay reveal:

Could this be the breakout game that gives Chinese developers an in route to the international games market?

A big part of Black Myth’s initial boom in popularity was to do with Daniel Ahmad, an industry analyst with nearly one hundred thousand followers. | Source: Twitter

Black Myth: Wu Kong Looks Like a Triple-A Experience

Video previews of Black Myth: Wu Kong have been flooding Twitter since the game was revealed. Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad shared a thread of information about the game, detailing the developers and their history, as well as various features he game will have.

Black Myth: Wu Kong will follow the adventures of the Monkey King, the central character in a famous piece of Chinese literature known as Journey to the West. The gameplay is combat-focused and will feature over 70 abilities Wu Kong uses to combat his foes.

This is the first game of its kind that Game Science Studios has worked on, and presents new challenges for the developers to overcome. So far, there is no news on a release date, but due to the game’s popularity online, it would be unusual if a western release wasn’t on the cards at some point.

The game certainly seemed to draw a lot of positive attention from Ahmad’s tweet. | Source: Twitter

China Goes From an Outsourcing Destination to Developing Its Own

The reason that Black Myth: Wu Kong is a significant development in the Chinese games industry, is because the region has historically been focused on outsourcing for major western games, as well as their own domestic titles.

As far back as 2007, outsourcing was already a thirty-five million dollar business in the Chinese games industry. Despite a large amount of domestic growth, the Chinese games industry has struggled to breach the western market.

A significant release like Black Myth: Wu Kong could go a big way towards making Chinese games more common in western territories. Distribution platform Steam makes a PC release a straightforward possibility with a large number of smaller Chinese games already on the platform.

Last modified: September 23, 2020 2:26 PM

William Worrall

William Worrall is a professional writer based out of the UK who has been writing about video and tabletop games for over a decade and has covered industry events such as EGX and UKGE. Contact him at william.worrall@ccn.com, see his LinkedIn profile here.