"Black Myth: Wukong": An Unexpected Yet Reasonable "Breakthrough"

Author: Huang Youcan

Cover image source: Visual China

Today is August 20th, and there is a "big event" worth mentioning.

From the announcement of its production to today, the domestically produced game "Black Myth: Wukong" has officially launched and started global sales after 4 years.

In the gaming and player circles, anticipation and attention have been building for months.

In recent days, the atmosphere has reached a fever pitch.

On August 19th, "Black Myth: Wukong" collaborated with Luckin Coffee for a marketing campaign, launching a co-branded coffee and related merchandise, which sold out across the internet by around 11 AM that morning.

Luckin's CGO expressed in a social media post that the entire company significantly underestimated the purchasing power and enthusiasm of male users and the general gaming community.

Starting a few days ago, Bilibili witnessed a spectacular scene—almost all gaming and anime-related content creators began making videos to support "Black Myth: Wukong." A significant portion of them were among the first invited to play the game, and the comments section was filled with a "national celebration" atmosphere.

Simultaneously, various memes began circulating online—many companies adopted slogans like "Take a day off on August 20th to let employees and programmers experience 'Black Myth: Wukong,'" reminiscent of the time when some companies made headlines for encouraging employees to watch the World Cup.

Even in the comment sections of popular fantasy novels, there were heated fan messages urging authors to take a break for the week of August 20th to experience "Black Myth: Wukong" before resuming updates.

As of now, pre-sales for the single-player game "Black Myth: Wukong" have exceeded 1.2 million copies, with estimated revenue nearing 400 million yuan.

Looking at the current trend, it may even break global records.

Under various factors, "Black Myth: Wukong" seems poised to break out of its niche.

Moreover, this wave of excitement is genuinely driven by players and users, rather than mere hype. There are many positive and hopeful factors behind this, which are worth discussing.

So, what exactly is "Black Myth: Wukong"? Why has it garnered such overwhelming attention and enthusiasm? Why are so many people willing to support it spontaneously? Who exactly is cheering for it?

What is there behind this that deserves to be amplified?

First, it is essential to understand the background: "Black Myth: Wukong" is the first domestically produced AAA game.

AAA games represent the highest standards of game production, typically referring to high-cost, high-quality single-player games produced by major studios.

AAA games require a vast worldview, expansive settings, and substantial game content.

For a long time, AAA games were only produced abroad; no domestic company had managed to create one.

Or rather, no company truly dared to bet on this and attempt it.

This is because the investment in AAA games is enormous. Based on foreign experience, the development cost of a game typically ranges from 70 million to 100 million USD, with a development cycle of 4 to 5 years.

High investment, long cycles, and an uncertain market mean that any misstep could result in all investments going to waste, burying the precious youth of many individuals.

Especially in the relatively utilitarian domestic market, it is faster and easier to make money by directly copying templates for mobile or online games.

Thus, major companies like Tencent and NetEase have not considered making AAA games over the years, instead focusing on mobile and online games that yield steady profits.

However, within the gaming community, AAA games represent a country's game production standards and the face of its gaming industry.

Many game developers harbor a dream—to create their own AAA game within their lifetime—a game that can be regarded as a lifelong pride, rather than just another mechanized cash-grab mobile game.

In this context, in 2020, a small team, a relatively unknown company, announced that they would create the first domestically produced AAA game.

Moreover, they truly began working on it and invested real money into the project.

Thus, "Black Myth: Wukong" is seen as "the first college student in the village" within the entire gaming industry and player community, treated with care and protection.

Over the past four years, this company has gradually released game settings, character designs, the first demo, and the first gameplay footage…

Until today, the game is finally set to launch for global sales.

Over these four years, the attitude of more people in the gaming industry and related sectors towards this product and project has remained one of "watchful waiting" and caution, especially given the many uncertainties faced by the gaming industry in terms of macro policy control in recent years.

Yet, this small team of fewer than ten people has gradually turned something that no one had ever attempted into reality, and the demos and various promotional videos they released have surprised players.

As a result, their estimated investment over the past four years has reached 400 to 500 million yuan.

During this time, even though everyone knew "Black Myth: Wukong" was in development and making progress, very few companies in the industry dared to follow suit and create similar high-quality productions—everyone was uncertain whether the market would truly be willing to pay for such products.

Thus, within the gaming, player, and anime communities, an early sentiment emerged: "We must seriously care for and protect this first college student that has emerged from our village."

Players have commented online:

"Black Myth: Wukong was made with billions over several years. Even if its final sales might not reach the monthly revenue of games like Honor of Kings or Genshin Impact, we as players must absolutely support it, for the sake of the production quality of domestic games. We must not let trashy pay-to-win mobile games completely lower the production standards of domestic games, and especially, we must not let the domestic gaming industry only produce trashy pay-to-win mobile games."

Second, the emergence of "Black Myth: Wukong" has resonated with a significant portion of hardcore players and users in the anime and gaming communities.

China's gaming and anime industries have been budding since the 1990s, and as they have developed to today, there has always been a certain conflict and controversy behind them.

Are games and anime truly the "ninth art," or are they merely "distractions that lead to a loss of ambition, escapism, and electronic heroin"?

This may be the focal point of these conflicts and controversies.

For hardcore players and anime users, many of their emotional experiences, ideological awakenings, and significant moments in life have been gained through games and anime. In their eyes, games and anime can serve as important carriers for the dissemination of thoughts and culture.

As an '80s player myself, I can clearly remember the emotions I experienced in games like "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and "Xuan Yuan Sword."

Many anime users also have their own "sacred series" that have played a crucial role in their growth and enlightenment.

However, in the eyes of mainstream public opinion, games are often associated with terms like "addiction," "fraud," and "pay-to-win," and are more frequently examined from these angles.

Thus, for many industry professionals, hardcore enthusiasts, and those in the broader anime industry, there exists a latent desire to "prove themselves"—in the more mainstream discourse, everyone wants to demonstrate that games and anime can be a very positive presence, and in terms of cultural dissemination and influence, their value can be on par with that of the film industry.

At this point, a potential contradiction arises.

If we want "games" to become a medium for cultural and ideological dissemination, then there must be greater investment in game production, content design, and world-building; often, "single-player games" are better suited to fulfill such demands.

Just like how we remember the important plots, character designs, and grand worldviews in "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and "Xuan Yuan Sword," which evoke deeper emotions.

But for games like League of Legends and Honor of Kings, what we remember is merely whether the gameplay is enjoyable and which characters and items are impressive.

However, from the current commercial market perspective, single-player games are the hardest products to profit from.

Creating a large-scale AAA single-player game involves high risks, significant investments, and long development cycles, making it seem like a poor business decision from a worldly perspective.

This is why major game companies only produce mobile and online games.

Yet, from another angle, if the market only has pay-to-win mobile and online games, the "gaming" industry may never be able to rise in mainstream discourse, forever accompanied by negative criticism.

Only when high-quality games that can carry important cultural and ideological narratives emerge can this industry truly have the opportunity to "prove itself" and gain recognition in mainstream discourse.

Against this backdrop, the meticulous production of "Black Myth: Wukong" has generated a strong emotional resonance among many users in the gaming and broader anime communities—a powerful desire to protect what they love and to validate their passion.

Many content creators have expressed similar sentiments: even if "Black Myth: Wukong" is only a 6 out of 10 in their eyes, they will wholeheartedly support it without hesitation because creating such a game in this industry and environment is incredibly challenging.

As long as the first game achieves decent sales, this company may have the opportunity to create a second one. If the industry sees good sales for this game, more people will be willing to invest in creating a third or fourth, allowing the industry to develop in a healthier and more positive direction over time.

Third, the launch of "Black Myth: Wukong" is also enhanced by a "national cultural identity" emotional buff.

Here, I would like to directly quote a player's comment:

"Ubisoft in France can replicate Notre-Dame Cathedral in the game one-to-one; Japan can let its samurai and ninjas be controlled by players worldwide to embark on adventures.

For so many years, we players have run through Paris, Italy, ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, and World War II—all of these are cultural promotions and stories from the West. When will we return to the East? In the global gaming industry, only Japan has been able to showcase its culture.

Even the Japanese can create such fantastic games, yet there has never been a game with a background worldview that is purely Chinese.

We have to watch many English and Japanese subtitles to play these games, and even learn English and Japanese to play well—why must it be this way?

Like "The Wandering Earth," "Black Myth" is the first domestic work in this field and may be a groundbreaking Chinese-themed work. After so many years, we can finally play games without subtitles.

Moreover, while Western-themed games may have stunning graphics and exciting combat, on a cultural level, it is often difficult for us to resonate with many elements. Some romantic notions should be unique to the Chinese, like the idea of 'wandering with the Earth,' which belongs solely to us. We want to play more games with such cultural cores.

The wheel of fortune turns; perhaps we no longer need to read subtitles. Maybe it's time for foreigners to learn Chinese to play our games—doesn't that deserve attention and joy?"

Additionally, two weeks before the release of "Black Myth: Wukong," many domestic hardcore players and global gaming media were invited to evaluate and score the game. The result was that the scores from mainstream global media were about 10 points lower than those from domestic hardcore players.

This led to a wave of sentiments like "foreigners don't understand us," "are they intentionally lowering our scores?" and "we need to help foreigners better understand the essence of Wukong and Chinese culture." Many players and content creators began to speak out from this perspective, wanting to validate this game.

In the current environment, such emotional support inevitably means a wave of tremendous attention and traffic.

At this point, we can probably understand the dissemination and breakout logic of "Black Myth: Wukong": a small group of loyal, hardcore users initiating and resolutely following + the industry's attention and pioneering significance + four years of meticulous craftsmanship and positive word-of-mouth for product quality + the addition of a strong emotional buff of "national cultural identity" = a massive wave of attention.

Finally, I want to mention two aspects of this hot event that I find particularly positive, impressive, and moving:

First, the younger generation's recognition, support, and pursuit of local culture are visibly strong.

Regardless of how the macro environment and the world evolve, for a significant portion of the more cognitively capable younger individuals, they increasingly have "roots to seek" in cultural identity.

They also possess a natural pursuit—to better disseminate the essence of our culture and let the whole world see it.

This alone nurtures much hope.

Second, this may be one of the few "simple acts of collective goodwill" on the internet in recent years.

That is: a large-scale collective activity entirely initiated by users and the market, intending to make an industry healthier, sustainable, and capable of producing more quality works. And it now seems that it may genuinely have the opportunity to bring about significant changes in this industry.

The most valuable aspect is that the leading voices in this entire event are more present in the grassroots, occurring more from the bottom up, and most people's desire to participate in this expression comes from a genuine wish to protect and support something they care about.

In my memory, such scenes were particularly common in the early days of the classical internet, but I haven't seen them for a long time in recent years.

Today's internet, with more voices and events like this, can be quite moving.