Black Myth: Wukong Poised for Success Despite Game Journalists’ Hate
Alex Gherzo | Aug 15, 2024 |
Games journalists are doing for Black Myth: Wukong what they did for Stellar Blade, and the game is poised to be a huge success when it’s released on August 20, 2024. The highly anticipated action role-playing game from Chinese studio Game Science is based on a novel called Journey to the West and puts players in control of a monkey called the Destined One, who uses a staff and various spells to fight supernatural enemies. The cinematic trailer, which premiered during Summer Game Fest 2024, wowed gamers with its outstanding graphics and sense of scale and adventure, and the glimpses at gameplay since then have only heightened the anticipation.
Like Stellar Blade before it, Black Myth: Wukong looks fun as hell. (Actually, I think this one looks even better.) Also like Stellar Blade, games journalists hate it and want it to fail. They went after Stellar Blade for sociopolitical reasons – the main character, Eve, was designed to be a sexually appealing woman who wore some skintight and skimpy outfits – and while they were able to get Sony (everyone assumes) to censor the outfits in the final game, a customer revolt has resulted in the overt sexiness coming back, which is still happening, with new outfits emphasizing Eve’s curvaceous looks.
The outfits in Stellar Blade just keep getting hotter.
Keep the gamer pressure on! https://t.co/hcyhkV15Wk
— Grummz (@Grummz) August 11, 2024
With Black Myth: Wukong, the motives are somewhat similar. Black Myth: Wukong doesn’t seem to have scantily clad women in it, and it’s not racially diverse because the characters are mostly anthropomorphic animals; the few humans in the trailer are Chinese, which makes sense because it’s a Chinese game based on a Chinese book about Chinese history and folklore. But that’s no excuse when you’re a totalitarian nut who needs your ideology espoused in everything from video games to movies to snack cakes. There are accusations that woke consulting firm Sweet Baby Inc. attempted to extort Game Science by threatening to sic the media on them if they didn’t pay them $7 million for their consulting services. The story goes that Game Science told them what to do with themselves, and that led to things like the IGN hit piece that targeted Black Myth: Wukong’s developer, Feng Ji, who was called a sexist because of jokes he may have made – with other gaming news outlets following suit – and even going so far as to take cultural phrases out of context and use them to vilify Feng Ji and Game Science.
>Chinese media: ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ refused to be extorted $7 million by SweetBaby.
English:
The reason why the team behind “Black Myth: Wukong” has been subjected to persistent sexist attacks and slander since their first promotional video is because they have consistently… pic.twitter.com/P94rUpVnuI
— Pirat_Nation (@Pirat_Nation) June 14, 2024
However, this sabotage campaign seems to be backfiring on the media big time. This week, Game Science released a Black Myth: Wukong benchmark tool on Steam, which is designed for PC gamers to make sure their computers meet the system requirements to play the game when it’s released. You can also test things like the graphics to see which options work best for your setup, and it helps the developers learn what parts of the game work and what don’t so they can quickly fix glitches or other problems. (I’ll bet that last part gave Western gaming developers a stroke.) The tool had a peak of 85,277 concurrent users, which is more than Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s all-time concurrent users peak (13,459), and that was an actual game. In fact, it’s more than the all-time peak concurrent players for the last three Sweet Baby Inc. games – Suicide Squad, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, and Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn – combined. Additionally, it’s number one on the most wish-listed Steam games list, with 623,973 followers.
Undoubtedly, people want to play Black Myth: Wukong primarily because it looks like a cool, fun, beautifully rendered game. But the decided lack of DEI and woke crap, the ridiculous gaming media freakout, and the notion that the developers might have told Sweet Baby Inc. to shove it may well have made even more gamers interested. It’s fun to stick it to the self-appointed elite, especially when they’ve made it clear they hate you, and it’s even more fun to do it when playing a good video game, which Black Myth: Wukong looks like it probably is.
Let us know if you’re looking forward to Black Myth: Wukong in the comments!
