Black Myth: Wukong - New game from Game Science

[Rodgerwilco]

Back in August Chinese game developer Game Science released a 13 minute pre-Alpha gameplay trailer for their new title Black Myth: Wukong. I was pretty impressed that they released such extensive gameplay footage in their very first news release for the game.



On February 8th, they released another short trailer featuring some more gameplay and showing some of the enemies that the Monkey King will face in the upcoming game.



As many of you probably know, the character is based on the popular Chinese mythological hero Sun Wukong, also known as The Monkey King. He has been featured prominently in many video games and literary works over the years.

Is anyone else excited for this game? It looks like it's going to be great, and given the deep lore associated with the Monkey King the possibilities are wiiiide open as far as quests, gameplay, and story go.

Click to read more...

 

[Shareefruck]

Yeah, I remember seeing this and thinking it looked promising (but I'm also a little bit skeptical). I grew up on that myth, and I've been waiting for some piece of media to authentically nail it instead of just referencing it, because nothing's really come all that close. Does anyone know what the scope of the lore is supposed to be for this?

 

[Unholy Diver]

It looks pretty good but how many videos have we seen that looked great then the game releases and is garbage?

I'm not familiar with the people making the game and if they are legit or not so I'll lean more to the skeptical side

 

[Soldier13Fox]

Definitely interested. Never heard of it, thanks for sharing.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

It looks pretty good but how many videos have we seen that looked great then the game releases and is garbage?

I'm not familiar with the people making the game and if they are legit or not so I'll lean more to the skeptical side

Yeah I think they're just starting out. According to their website that part of their motivation for releasing the trailers was to potentially get other developers onto the project.

Yeah, I remember seeing this and thinking it looked promising (but I'm also a little bit skeptical). I grew up on that myth, and I've been waiting for some piece of media to authentically nail it instead of just referencing it, because nothing's really come all that close. Does anyone know what the scope of the lore is supposed to be for this?

Well, their website is entirely in Chinese, and the google translation is kind of broken, but from the gist of it, it sounds like it's going to a re-telling of Journey to the West and dive more deeply into some of the other characters beyond the Monkey King.

Here's the link if you wanna check it out : 《黑神话：悟空》——西游题材·单机·动作·角色扮演游戏

Edit: I did not expect the link to post in Chinese, that is very odd, lol.

 

[Shareefruck]

It looks pretty good but how many videos have we seen that looked great then the game releases and is garbage?

I'm not familiar with the people making the game and if they are legit or not so I'll lean more to the skeptical side

I could be wrong, but I think I heard from someone that it's a first time effort by some relative unknown that took everyone by surprise with the 13 minute teaser or something (heard a lot of "modest indie team creates what looks like a AAA game"-type buzz). That and it being a Chinese company is why I'm skeptical too. I just haven't come across anything from that country that's seemed all that admirable to me.

Well, their website is entirely in Chinese, and the google translation is kind of broken, but from the gist of it, it sounds like it's going to a re-telling of Journey to the West and dive more deeply into some of the other characters beyond the Monkey King.

Here's the link if you wanna check it out : 《黑神话：悟空》——西游题材·单机·动作·角色扮演游戏

Edit: I did not expect the link to post in Chinese, that is very odd, lol.

Interesting. That'd be very cool if it's the whole thing from beginning to end. I feel like a lot of that stuff translates very well into game progression, too.

The vibe from the trailer does seem a little overly serious for the source material, though.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

I could be wrong, but I think I heard from someone that it's a first time effort by some relative unknown that took everyone by surprise with the 13 minute teaser or something (heard a lot of "modest indie team creates what looks like a AAA game"-type buzz). That and it being a Chinese company is why I'm skeptical too. I just haven't come across anything from that country that's seemed all that admirable to me.
Interesting. That'd be very cool if it's the whole thing from beginning to end. I feel like a lot of that stuff translates very well into game progression, too.

The vibe from the trailer does seem a little overly serious for the source material, though.

Yeah they openly said they were trying to attract more attention to the project and hopefully get developers from around the country to contribute.


Also, to your last point, I agree. I've been reading up more on the lore of the Monkey King and it seems like this has a bit of a darker tone to it than I got from a lot of the stories I read. Monkey King seems almost silly at times. I'm going to have to sit down with Journey to the West sometime soon.

 

[Shareefruck]

Yeah they openly said they were trying to attract more attention to the project and hopefully get developers from around the country to contribute.


Also, to your last point, I agree. I've been reading up more on the lore of the Monkey King and it seems like this has a bit of a darker tone to it than I got from a lot of the stories I read. Monkey King seems almost silly at times. I'm going to have to sit down with Journey to the West sometime soon.

Interesting thing about that-- the original actually does toy with some very dark things but kind of treats it in a silly campy way. The main gimmick of the folk tale is (instead of the "good guy tempted by evil" trope of Star Wars/Lord of the Rings) basically (just the main premise)

Spoiler

"take a bunch of horrible menaces to society who succumb to their base instincts/vices/personal demons way too far and indirectly teach them buddhist principles via campy episodic story arcs so that they learn to be good."

The neat thing about that is that some fast-and-loose adaptations/references that want to keep it real or put a clever twist on it will play with how horrifyingly dark it can get if you treat it too seriously, and how the main characters that you're supposed to root for make really good/scary villains. For example, (just the main premise of the characters)

Spoiler

one is essentially a reformed elaborately manipulative sexual predator/borderline implied serial rapist, and the Monkey King is basically a reformed version of Goku if his child-brained playfulness/ego-centric competitiveness was in danger of turning him into this Homelander-esque borderline homicidal maniac figure/nuclear bomb feared by all.

So I wonder what the game does with that if it goes the ultra serious route. I doubt it'll do anything with it (most normal adaptations don't and just remain silly and playful), but still.

 

[Shareefruck]

Here's a really good video I found explaining the myth's historical context, premise, and place in pop culture.

 

[Villella McMeans]

The trailers look awesome, but as @Shareefruck said above, most of original lore probably not adhered to.

Still this game looks frigging cool!

Miss games that really accurate historically, like the Koei Romance of Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh etc.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Been quite a while since this company released anything about this game. I missed posting it, but back in January they released a ~13 minute parody video of their development challenges and some of the fun things they're doing. The footage of seeing cats decked out in Motion Capture equipment is worth watching alone, lol.


While I'd love to see more technical news about this game, I really appreciate that they've put this together and shows a lot of progress they've made. It really does well to highlight the struggles of a smaller studio trying to put out a true AAA gaming experience.

It's also very encouraging that they're not wanting to leave their fans hanging.

 

[hotcabbagesoup]

Surprised this type of landscape (rocky, mountainous, tropical, Asian forests, I would love the swamp areas too) and fighting with staves hasn't been explored in more games. The footage so far looks so exotic and refreshing.