Black Myth: Wukong: Only with a sincere heart can you reach the Western Paradise

As a highly anticipated Chinese AAA game, Black Myth: Wukong has not only caused a huge response in the gaming field, but also aroused extensive discussion on the cultural level. The official release of the game marks an important milestone in the Chinese gaming industry and has also touched the hearts of countless players.

At 10:00 am on August 20, 2024, "Black Myth: Wukong" will be officially released.

Players, especially Chinese players, have unprecedented expectations and participation in this game. It will be flooded with various discussions for a long time in the future, and we hope to record the fragments and profiles of this work that goes beyond the game itself from a few keywords at this time.

01 “Three Years”

"Our development plan is to make the game in three years," said Feng Ji, founder of Game Science, the development team of "Black Myth: Wukong" in 2020, in an interview with the up-loader Mango Ice. But he later asked not to put this plan in the article because he was afraid of putting pressure on the team.

In the end, it was one year longer than planned.

But Black Myth: Wukong is still called an industrial miracle of Chinese games.

This is the first AAA game made from scratch in China. It took Santa Monica Studio about 12 years from its founding to make God of War. The Last of Us Part II took 6 years to develop, and Elden Ring took 4 years.

When 1.2 million pre-sale players celebrate "Wukong's birthday" on August 20, 2024, it will have been 10 years since Game Science was founded, and 6 years and 6 months since they decided to develop "Black Myth: Wukong".

02 Journey to the West

Because of the inseparable relationship with the original work "Journey to the West", we Chinese players are equivalent to obtaining the "official guidebook" before playing the game. I believe that only Chinese players will have completely different feelings from European and American players when seeing these childhood memories. This is a blood-thirsty moment unique to Chinese players.

This is what IGN China wrote in its review.

Whether from the stories told by people who played the game or the trailers, Black Myth: Wukong is full of hidden reunions.

Because of the richness and complexity of Journey to the West itself, and the various secondary creations that are equally rich and complex, you don't need to know every story to understand many of its elements. And they have become the most needed blinking memes in popular culture such as games.

A weapon, a place name, or even a pet. "Cloud Palace Swift Sound", the old man of the land, the golden cicada. The souls of the past of all Chinese gamers lie across them.

The comment of Jihe mentioned: "Maybe you think I have explored all the places in an area, but why do I still have half of the bosses to fight?"

No one tells you what you need to do here, but when you are familiar enough with Journey to the West, after wandering around here for a long time, when you finally encounter a hidden plot, you will eventually burst out with a swear word and shout:

That's wonderful.

03 I

In Feng Ji's expressions, "I" appears in the answers to many key questions, and these "I" also change over time.

“I don’t really want to play the games I made.”

This is an expression Feng Ji has used repeatedly - from his widely discussed article "Who Murdered Our Games" to almost every answer he gives about the ideas behind games.

"I used to be so old, but now I am in my prime." This line was quoted in the 2020 trailer poster.

In 2018, after the core staff of Game Science held a meeting in the early morning and decided to make a stand-alone game, Yang Qi, the co-founder of Game Science and the person in charge of art, said on Weibo:

"I started to do something stupid in the new year. It seemed like I had been waiting for this day for 10 years. I went out for a meeting in the middle of the night, and the trees in the entire community were calling my name softly..."

I am everywhere.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency released the day before the launch, the meaning of "I" seemed to be greater.

"When you want to do something that impresses yourself, it is likely to impress people who are similar to you. They hope that in their own country, their own nation, and their own culture, there will be something that they appreciate and even feel proud of."

04 Edition Number

In February this year, the game license for "Black Myth: Wukong" was approved.

The publishing unit Zhejiang Publishing Media issued an article at the time announcing that Black Myth had obtained a publishing number. The article wrote: The project was submitted to the online game boutique publishing project organized and implemented by the State Press and Publication Administration at the end of October 2023. It aims to strengthen the positive guidance of online games, promote online games to promote truth, goodness and beauty, spread positive energy, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the game industry.

05 Silence

Most of the time, the image that people in Game Science present to the outside world is jumping and even rebellious. But there are a few times when silence is impressive.

"Are you worried that you won't be able to meet everyone's expectations?" a reporter asked in a video interview with Xinhua News Agency.

Feng Ji raised his head and looked at the sky, as if it was a still picture.

Another important node in the story is the first trailer on August 20, 2020. At that time, Zhu Jiayin, the founder of Touch Music, also recorded a collective silence of Game Science employees at the end of the report. At that time, Feng Ji arranged a team-building movie-watching event for everyone, and then designed a "surprise": before the movie started, the cinema would play the trailer of "Black Myth: Wukong" that had just sparked a big discussion on the Internet.

"The Game Science logo appeared on the screen, and there was a commotion in the audience - but only for a few seconds, and then there was silence. The screen began to play the trailer, the trailer they made that shocked the entire Internet this morning, but everyone sat upright and there was no sound in the audience.
The trailer ended, and just as I expected, the theater was still silent. There were a few applause at first, but when they realized that not many people responded, the applause soon stopped.
Everyone just sat there until the lights in the hall were turned back on.”

Also, the protagonist of the game, the monkey representing Sun Wukong, is silent most of the time, judging from the trailer and current information.

Sun Wukong is loyal, unyielding, conflicted in identity, and struggling with self-awareness. He is both noisy and quiet.

Of course, this could just be a technical issue.

06 China

“This dubbing is so good.”
“It should be like this, but this is the first time that Chinese players have enjoyed first-class treatment.”

A conversation between a player and a developer was shared in the Jihe podcast.

In his conversation with Xinhua News Agency, Feng Ji was also asked about the "domestic" label.

"We first acknowledge this as a fact. We are indeed a Chinese team making a Chinese theme, but it is not the purpose.
Just because you put a national style label on it doesn’t mean you have a “get out of jail free card” or you can lower the quality. I think you should even have a greater sense of responsibility and be cautious. In fact, you may need to make more efforts to think about how to combine it with other qualities of the best products in the world.”

Judging from the many professional reviews that are full of praise, the world set in this Chinese-style game is large enough. From the beginning, no one has a difficulty choice. If you want to get more, you can't "skip class".

These are just game settings, but at some points they may remind you of your life outside of the game.

07 Decade

Ten years ago, in 2014, where were you and what were you doing?

The people at Game Science sang these lyrics in a homemade "vulgar" MV ten years ago: "What have I done with five years of hard work? It's not as good as one day of Blade & Soul."

The MV was about a team that lost their jobs after working on “God of War”. This team was the predecessor of Game Science. They used an angry and weird way to remember the opportunity they were deprived of.

Ten years later, Fighting Buddha disappeared and Black Myth came. The same group of people who shouted "Don't be a coward" in the MV made their official debut declaration in the bigger world.

The protagonist of this game is called "Destiny Man".

Many people watched the interview and played the game, and found that the person sitting opposite them might be themselves, their innocent self gradually cooling down, and their childhood self once again transforming into a hero.

Author: Wang Zhaoyang