close
close

The Chinese video game “Black Myth: Wukong” is about to break records


The Chinese video game “Black Myth: Wukong” is about to break records

“Black Myth: Wukong” breaks online records for concurrent players.

Similar to the 2021 Game of the Year “God of War,” “Black Myth: Wukong” is a modern retelling of an ancient myth.

Wukong is an action RPG adventure based on the 1592 Chinese novel Journey to the West. The game’s protagonist is Sun Wukong, a monkey king from the novel who is imprisoned under a mountain by Buddha after leading a rebellion against heaven.

Black Myth: Wukong debuted Tuesday to massive player numbers on Steam, the online store where most PC gamers make their purchases. At its peak on Wednesday, the game had more than 2.3 million concurrent players on Steam alone.

According to the South China Morning Post, over 4.5 million copies of the game have already been sold worldwide in just a few days.

It now ranks second behind PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds as the game with the highest concurrent player count of all time. PUBG recorded over 3.2 million concurrent players in December 2017, according to Dexerto.

“Chinese players have gone through this process of cross-cultural understanding in the past. Now it is the turn of foreign players to learn about and understand traditional Chinese culture,” CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, said in a blog post on its WeChat account on Wednesday.

The success of “Black Myth: Wukong” comes despite backlash from streamers who complained about censorship by the game’s developers before its release, according to NBC. Some streamers who received pre-release copies of the game also received a Google Doc from the Chinese studio behind the game, Hero Games, according to NBC.

The document included a list of dos and don’ts, outlining “trigger words” to avoid, such as “quarantine,” “isolation” and “COVID-19,” as well as topics to avoid, such as “feminist propaganda” and “other content that incites negative discourse,” NBC reported.

Hero Games did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on Wednesday.

Chinese state media described the success of “Black Myth: Wukong” as a great achievement. The game is considered the first AAA game from a Chinese developer.