Review of the long-awaited game Black Myth: Wukong. It has surpassed the popularity of Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring

This week, Black Myth: Wukong was released worldwide.

It was first talked about back in 2020. At that time, there were only 20 people in the Game Science group. Over the past 4 years, more than 100 specialists in various fields have joined the project. Wukong is a rare Chinese game that does not require collecting tons of donations, it is not a multiplayer multiplayer project, a single-player AAA game, and this is just a rarity for the local gamedev.

In the first 24 hours after its release, the title was played by over 2.2 million gamers worldwide! Thanks to this, it became the second most popular game on Steam after PUBG, overtaking Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring.

We have also played the new product, have about 20 hours with it and are ready to share our impressions. Is such attention deserved? Is popularity equal to a great game? Let’s figure it out. Spoiler: everything is not as rosy as we would like.

One of the fastest selling games

Our studios’ Game Science creation became one of the fastest-selling games of all time in the industry, selling over 10 million units in just 3 days.

For comparison:

▪ Palworld: 19 million copies in two weeks
▪ Hogwarts Legacy: 15 Million in Three Months
▪ Elden Ring: 13 million per month
▪ Cyberpunk 2077: 13.7 million months
▪ Baldur’s Gate 3: 20 million in five months

Where is all the hype coming from? Firstly, the game is rich unique mythology and is based on the work “Journey to the West” – one of the four classical Chinese novels.

The game is incredibly well-developed and tells us about the local universe in great detail. Of course, it is not the level of the original source, but no less meticulous.

Secondly, unique setting. How many games do you know where you are given the roles of monkey people, and also with a divine origin? There are few such games on the market, and this is what makes them especially appealing to players. Yes, you can go to the side with “again you are the chosen one, again the fate of the whole world depends on you” and so on. Then it will be assessed differently. But I don’t see the point in this, everything changes fundamentally here.

Immersion in Chinese Epics

The game’s plot tells us about a descendant of the monkey king Sun Wukong, who decided to take his ancestor’s journey to revive him. It’s a long and difficult journey that we feel right on ourselves.

The story, at first glance, looks pretty simple. But it will go deeper if you dive into the original source. And after 3 chapters it becomes more multifaceted. And before that moment, it is still necessary – not every player can handle it (we do not count fans of souls games, we will talk about this a little later).

This story is one of the more exciting parts, during which you meet characters familiar to you from the prophecies, but the presentation of the plot is not always done at a high level. Our little monkey ends up in new lands under mysterious circumstances that are unclear to the viewer. Sometimes he hides in a chest, sometimes he wakes up with a hundred arrows in his body, sometimes he just teleports through an ancient warrior statue. There is no continuous narrative line, it seems as if some part of the story is simply missing.

However, the events in each chapter, although unclear, seem humanely and the holder is in suspense. They are like epic scenes from God of War. Watching the legends of China sit on the screen is a real feast for the eyes. So if you like ancient Chinese motifs, then this is a unique experience that is difficult to replicate without being Chinese.

Addictive gameplay until the very end

The combat system in Black Myth: Wukong is almost standard click-through, but with a souls twist. Since you play as a young Sun Wukong, you only have one weapon available to you – a staff. It can be upgraded by using different types of staff, for example, one will be focused on extreme strikes, and another on defense.

Unlike the Souls game, you don’t control the character here. Instead, you’re given points that can be used to upgrade certain skills of the protagonist: mystic arts, martial arts, and transformation. This is where the combat system really shines: most of the time you’ll be pressing the quick-press button until you’ve built up enough energy to perform a powerful one, but using special abilities between attacks makes the fighter. more exciting. In addition, these skills significantly help in conducting battles.

The key is to choose your skills wisely before the fight. You will use your skills most often in the open world, but you will encounter bosses that are important to understand their strengths and weaknesses. They have a long health bar that is not so easy to destroy the first few times.

And after death you are thrown into the nearest altar, where there is a health ash and friends around. For the most part, the game resembles souls. In the people, which she already called Souls Lite, there is a very simplified tradition, despite the titles.

What makes me happy here is how the developers play with your abilities. As I said above, each boss (and they are found here every 15-20 minutes of varying complexity) you need to find your own approach.

For example, one of the most powerful skills. Allows you to freeze enemies for a few seconds. However, later in the campaigns there are bosses that this skill will not affect, but on the contrary, it will play into their hands. Maybe the main character also creates copies of himself for some time, but one of the bosses easily turns them against you. It is such tiny details in each frame that create a unique gaming experience. And each reflection is reflected in a truly different way.

One way or another, here no open world. Develop changes in semi-open places, sometimes big, sometimes not so much. You need to swing on them, but you do not have the same freedom as, for example, in the same Elden Ring or Dark Souls.

Therefore, all locations are unique in their own way and reveal personal secrets. For example, in one of the starting locations, when you try to pick another flower, a wolf crawls out from under it. Or, a little later, a huge frog suddenly jumps out of the tall grass. There are plenty of such elements in the game, and they bring some surprise. And stylistically, the locations differ from each other: here you have swamps, jungles, forests, deserts (by the way, with high-quality sand physics), and much more.

the only thing that really upset me was this abundance of invisible walls. There are some crazy amount of them here, and you are not always able to figure out how to get to the next secret. The problem is that you see a direct route, which in general can be difficult. But no, the developers do not think so.

What about optimization?

I played Black Myth: Wukong on PC with RTX 4070 and there were no performance issues.

I only encountered a couple of minor bugs during the whole time, but I never fell under the textures. Even when I persistently tried to do it. During the game there were stable 60 hours on electricity.

The graphics are excellent and they are ahead of the hardware requirements. For those who want to test their hardware, a separate benchmark from the developers has been released on Steam.

However, not everything is so good. According to reviews, the game runs with lags on PlayStation 5 and makes the console work hard.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t launch the game on Mac for reasons unknown to me. Crossout simply refused to launch Black Myth: Wukong. Perhaps this is just my problem, so it’s worth checking separately on other computers.

Great game worth playing

The Chinese studio managed to create one of the most beautiful games. However, there are some drawbacks associated with the use of the Unreal Engine.

In particular, some rocks and their textures can be of low quality. When you look at this tall world and then turn the camera and see a poorly rendered piece of rock, it breaks the immersion. But these are minor flaws, so personally I can safely overlook them.

I really liked the English voice acting in the game (there was not much choice: either Chinese or English). But the Russian localization still needs to be improved. The developers state this directly in the slot menu. The reason: not all Chinese aphorisms and catchphrases are easily translated.

As for games in general, I was initially quite skeptical about Black Myth: Wukong, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised. What Game Science has managed to create is truly something great. It’s a visual delight that brings ancient China and Chinese mythology to life like never before. The location design, the soundtrack, the visuals are a balm for the soul. And the boss fights are pure delight.

Black Myth: Wukong is now available on Steam for 3599 rubles. Also a female game for PlayStation 5. Recommended for review.