The mix of the Black Myth: Wukong and traditional Chinese culture – Why this game is a success

Image source: Black Myth: Wukong – Search Images

Chinese action RPG Black Myth: Wukong has quickly become a global phenomenon since its launch in August 2024 and has sold an amazing 25 million copies up to January 2025.

The game has surpassed the sales of Elden Ring and Hogwarts Legacy in the same timeframe, according to analyst Daniel Ahmad. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom also sold 10 million copies in about three days.

By Eddie Makuch on August 23, 2024

RPGs have always been one of the most popular game genres on steam, and at the same time the competition for good works is very fierce.Why does Black Myth: Wukong can stand out in the global gaming market? Why has it even become a symbol of Eastern gaming culture? This article will cut through and analyze the game’s plot, production, painting style, background culture.

First, we need to know what kind of story Black Myth: Wukong tells, and how players play it. Although the Game’s setting is mainly based on the classic Chinese fiction “Journey to the West”, it is not a replay of the original storyline, but more like a continuation of it. In Black Myth: Wukong players don’t take on the role of the Monkey King, the Great Sage of Qi Tian, but a character called “Destined One” who needs to pass through six levels with different environmental elements. Players need to read the plot, kill the bosses, finish all the chapters, and get “Relic” as a reward (about 30-40 hours). However, the above is just the main storyline, the game development team has added a lot of hidden side plots, bosses, and extra rewards to Black Myth: Wukong that will need the player to put in a lot more hours to complete (60 hours or more). Since it’s an RPG, it’s an important thing whether the player can feel the thrill of the fight. Obviously, Black Myth: Wukong delivers a perfect score for this answer. As Destined One, the player can attack with the stick, which can be a light attack, a heavy attack, or a jump or air combo. At the same time, skills and normal attacks can be linked to cause combo damage. The game needs dodging, attacking, and blocking, and players can take advantage of terrain and aerial skills to accomplish these in battle. Bosses have a different of attacks, and players need keep to mind their moves and counter-attack opportunities, and face different types of enemies that need different skills to defeat them. Even when compared with the long-established RPG Elden Ring, Black Myth: Wukong excels in its combat mechanics, offering players a strong sense of challenge.

I can dodge a large number of attacks in Elden Ring by simply maneuvering my character and using the environment without dodging. Compared to that, you must dodge the attacks in Black Myth Wukong by timing it correctly, or else it would kind of snap into you. 

By Sanmay Chakrabarti

Image source:Black Myth Wukong live gameplay – Search Images

Meanwhile,  it is different from the usual RPG game building style, that the Black Myth: Wukong are all the Chinese traditional culture reproduction, to fulfill the reverse output of culture:In the game, all the architectural designs are modeled on and accurately scanned from real Chinese traditional temple architecture, allowing foreign players to experience and learn about the origins of Chinese traditional architectural culture while playing. The game meticulously captures Eastern temple designs, echoing structures characterized by roof eaves, roll roofs, ceramic tiles adorned with auspicious motifs, and symbolic figures like lions and dragons. In addition, the game show the traditional Chinese culture “landscape painting” in the mountains, water, forests, fog, light and shadow and other elements into it, through the 3D special effects, to create a similar feeling of ink painting.There are also in game Buddha statues and religious sculptures, which were not created out of nothing. The were inspired by real life Buddha statues are scanned to give the feeling of a real religious place to the online space. In terms of color, it also follows the meaning of color in traditional Chinese culture: Colors like red (symbolizing fortune), green (vitality), black and white (balance), and gold (royalty) play pivotal roles. The game’s BGM as features traditional chinese instruments such as erhu, flute and guzheng an so on.

Image source:Black Myth Wukong Bureau of Game Architecture – Search Images

Although, the Black Myth: Wukong is an excellent work, it still has some flaws. When traditional culture is turned into a game IP, one of the questions that has to be faced is: does too much commercialization hide the color of the story itself? Apparently it doesn’t do that well. 

In literally burying the Monkey King under a rock, the Black Myth: Wukong liberates itself from the question of fidelity so far as its adherence to the source material is concerned. It is a clever manoeuvre as it simplifies the otherwise complex origin story involving religions and pilgrimage, something that might not jive with the political currents. 

By Denton.2

This is a narrative strategy: by setting the story after Sun Wukong has completed the Journey to the West (a legend that has already been “sealed away”), the game frees itself from the constraints of the original storyline and gains greater narrative freedom. It is because games, as popular entertainment products, will unavoidably abandon some of the content of traditional culture that is not popular in the market (e.g., the complexity of Journey to the West has been simplified in the game) in order to exchange into business success.

Anyway, the Black Myth: Wukong is a really good example of an RPG. It not only helped and reinforced China’s status in the global gaming market, but at the same time put a unique Chinese culture into it and carried it forward through gaming.It has also come up with excellent production ability in terms of technology, so that foreign players will get to learn about Chinese history in order to be able to play and understand the game, creating a reverse transmission of culture. But it is still a big challenge to make business and culture develop in the game at the same time. Hopefully, in the next work, a perfect answer will be rendered to the players.