BASED on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West from the 16th century, Black Myth: Wukong has resurfaced at Gamescom 2023.
In its latest trailer, Wukong shows its titular hero, the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, travelling across several locations and fighting a variety of bosses, such as a humanoid tiger.
Developed with Epic’s Unreal Engine 5, Wukong continues to look like an impressive, truly next-gen game, with gameplay that takes the Dark Souls approach to intense, fast-paced melee-magic battles that will surely test the reflexes and mettle of gamers.
First revealed three years ago, the game has ironically existed as its namesake, a myth.
A reminder that the game still exists would resurface once a year whenever the Chinese studio Game Science provided “development progress,” and then it would be back to radio silence, seemingly dooming the game into the black hole of good-looking Chinese game trailers of never-to-be released games.”
However, this year, things are different.
Prior to Gamescom, IGN was invited to a hands-on event in Hangzhou, China, along with reportedly “over a thousand players from across the country” to try the latest trial version of Wukong.
The reasons why anticipation and expectation for Wukong is running high is fairly obvious.
It looks like it will be a very good game, and secondly, games – particularly AAA-quality action-RPGs – based on Chinese settings, folktales and stories are rarely made outside of China.
The common go-to for Western-developed games is usually based around European or Japanese aspects.
Occasionally, outliers would be games set in the Middle East, like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed games, such as the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which will take place in ancient Baghdad.
Though there is still no release date set for Black Myth: Wukong, Game Science is targeting a summer 2024 release for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.