Ten years ago, China lifted its then fourteen-year-long ban on the sale of video game consoles after seeing incredible growth within its online gaming market in the years prior. The lift allowed the “big three” – Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft – to finally begin selling their consoles to the third-largest market in the world, bringing forth millions worth of sales and inspiring dozens of local studios to branch out of the online and mobile gaming markets to pursue larger scoped titles within the console space. Such was the case with Game Science, makers of the immensely popular and 2024 Golden Joystick’s Ultimate Game of the Year award winner, Black Myth: Wukong.
It’s frankly a little astonishing to think that a developer who’d only done a couple of relatively simple mobile strategy games beforehand would go on to develop such an incredibly high-production value title–all for less than $100m, no less. Though that budget was unheard of for the Chinese market, it’s a number that honestly veers on the side of “double-A” out here in the West; a clear example of the dire straits our market is currently in. Wukong is easily one of the best showpieces for Unreal Engine 5, polishing all of Nvidia’s newfangled graphical tech to a pristine sheen. But it’s not just the graphics, the game itself plays with a depth that we’ve become unaccustomed to seeing by such a relatively unknown studio, to the point where the initial reaction to its reveal trailer four years ago was that of doubt if the game would actually look and play the way it did in the trailer.
From its cutscenes and animations, to its beautiful reimaginings of classic Journey to the West characters, to its combat systems and boss encounters, Black Myth: Wukong is a game that I feel would have been far more highly regarded in terms of its aggregate critical score if it were made by a From Software or an equally established developer. That’s not to say the game is perfect, of course. Its cumbersome linearity, slew of technical issues on release, and lack of punchy feedback during combat are all salient criticisms. On top of that, the studio got into some concerning waters as IGN reported in late 2023 of the studio’s history of sexism and troubling comments made by their higher-ups. Nevertheless, none of that stopped the game from selling like gangbusters and being nominated for the top prize at this year’s Game Awards. Safe to say, Game Science’s success now has the world’s eyes set on other Chinese developers, and Wukong may be the first drop before the floodgates open.
In 2025 alone there are multiple planned releases of titles seemingly similar in scale to Wukong. Phantom Blade Zero, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and Code: To Jin Yong are a few notable games whose reveal trailers all look on par with what Game Science showed us back in 2020. Of course, each of these games’ developers are of a different size, Code: To Jin Yong’s Lightspeed Games being a well-funded division of Tencent, for instance. Still, none of these developers have created games of this high-production value in the past and it’s hard not to be impressed when seeing their trailers. Each not only has unique art styles with beautiful visuals, but they all seem to have a refreshing freneticism to their combat and gameplay. A lot of that flair, I can imagine, stems from the developers’ cultural roots and their games taking inspiration from the classic Chinese Wuxia genre.
When looking at these trailers back-to-back, there was a connective thread that I did find curious. Every one of these games shared a similar aesthetic in one way or another. They were all these visually impeccable, fast-paced third-person character action games that had gameplay glimmers of a Souls-like, with protagonists performing acrobatic combat that looked immensely fun. Sound familiar? I’m looking at you, Sun-Wukong. It’d be interesting to see if after we’ve played through our nth game with a similar framework the trend becomes stale. But that’s for the future to decide. For now, I’m eagerly awaiting to see how some of these games pan out. If they’re anything like Black Myth: Wukong, I’m going to be a very pleased man…as long as they don’t have any Hundred-Eye Daoist Masters for me to face (iykyk).
Yup! Asia will kick woke games asses..China, Korea, and Japan will own them all..