BMyth: Wukong is a video game obsessed with spectacle, but inspiring awe requires confidence. Such confidence is a rarity in big-budget games, where concerns about mainstream acceptance often inspire timidity on the part of their developers. Thanks to its cutting-edge graphics, Black Myth: Wukong looks like it belongs in the big blockbusters, but this action game is actually the product of a Chinese indie studio, Game Science. Yet the experience is so fleshed out that it’s hard to believe this is the studio’s first “premium” game.
It’s based on the influential 16th-century East Asian novel Journey to the West, which has already inspired a huge chunk of modern pop culture, from Dragon Ball to the 2010 game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. You play as a stone monkey, Sun Wukong, a major character from the novel whose depiction always seemed destined to become the protagonist of a video game. In the original story, Wukong is said to possess incredible strength and speed, but that’s not all. He can also transform into all sorts of animals and objects, and can manipulate the weather. Oh, and he can make copies of himself, too, just in case one all-powerful monkey isn’t enough to handle the job.
All of these abilities are introduced in a tutorial that sees Wukong challenge mountain-sized deities and an army disappearing over the horizon. It’s like an adrenaline rush, and the game does a fantastic job of maintaining this momentum throughout its 40 hours of gameplay. Wukong’s wide array of abilities are complemented by different characters that you can collect and use, Pokémon-style, to keep things fresh throughout.
Part of what makes Wukong such a striking experience is that it borrows conventions from modern action games to suit its story and leaves the rest of what you might expect on the cutting room floor. The most obvious influence here is the “Soulslike” genre, a type of game that is notoriously challenging and brimming with gorgeous, larger-than-life boss fights. In the original Souls games, the structure can be thought of as a sine wave of highs and lows. A single hallway with a couple of enemies can grow to feel like an entire universe as the player struggles to reach the other side unscathed. Progress becomes so gradual and painstaking that accomplishing anything feels like a huge accomplishment. By the time you reach the dreaded boss fight, it’s almost like a relief. Finally, the source of your endless woe seems as grand as it feels.
Death may be a certainty, but it’s also like trying out reincarnation. A game like Wukong, which has its roots in Buddhism, is therefore perfect for the soulslike genre. Encountering immortals and yao gais is as thrilling and terrifying in-game as the myths suggest. The enduring nature of Journey to the West also lends a sense of life that rings true even if you’re unfamiliar with the story. There’s a satisfying weight and swiftness to combat, but even the smallest details, like soaking gourds to amplify your abilities, make the universe feel more authentic.
Unlike most action games of its ilk, Wukong isn’t an open-world game: there’s no minimap dotted with tasks or quest log to sift through. At times, the lack of assistance can feel overwhelming. Every new area brings with it the possibility of getting lost, but the line between anxiety and excitement is thin. Wukong is nimble, but it captures the allure of exploration better than games that flaunt the illusion of vastness, only to reduce its impressive world to a collection of digestible map icons. By forcing the player to descend a dangerous mountain or blindly traverse a slimy swamp, Wukong cues you to trust the process. Minimizing menu time envelops you more deeply in the wondrous landscapes. Such are the possibilities when a game takes it upon itself to curate the experience, rather than glorify the fantasy of player choice.
Beyond the fantastic exploration, Wukong does a tremendous job of rewarding curiosity. Some parts of the world are hidden from the player at first, until you gather the right set of items or talk to the right characters. These optional sections are aptly called “Obsessions.” Buddhist thought revolves around the dangers of attachment, which they believe paves the way to suffering, so the objects you find are a microcosm of that idea — that someone, at some point, had such a strong attachment to the quest object that their anguish transports you into an ethereal space. It’s a great take on a world rife with mysticism and otherworldly spirits. And it’s also unabashed — obsessive players will discover these areas, even if it means they have to defeat another set of powerful bosses.
Deservedly, Black Myth: Wukong has been a huge success. Journey to the West is a story with a proven track record, but no other adaptation of the novel has sold 10 million copies in the space of just a few days. For some Westerners, it seems to have come as a surprise that a game like this could come from a country known for mobile games and microtransactions; for others, its success is inseparable from its legibility to Chinese audiences, who have perhaps never been so well-served by a blockbuster game. It’s as if the weight of an entire country’s cultural export has fallen on a developer virtually no one had been able to name before this game’s release, and Game Science is clearly not used to the scrutiny it’s received. But looking at Black Myth: Wukong solely through the lens of market size and tastes is a disservice that obscures the most critical fact of all: it’s a fantastic game.