Black Myth: Wukong martial arts title in race to become China’s first AAA game
- While the developer Game Science has yet to announce a release date, it is expected the game will join a list of Chinese titles to appear on the next generation of consoles
- Within a day of being uploaded, the game’s 13-minute demo video recorded 10 million views on Chinese video site Bilibili and nearly 2 million on YouTube
While China dominates the US$77 billion mobile gaming market, it falls short when it comes to AAA games, an umbrella term for premium titles incorporating cutting-edge technology and art.
As the mobile gaming market reaches saturation, Chinese companies are now looking to compete in the premium space with a new generation of titles under the industry’s informal AAA classification, usually pronounced triple-A. The latest is the martial arts action game Black Myth: Wukong by Hangzhou-based studio Game Science.
Within a day of being uploaded, the game’s 13-minute demo video recorded 10 million views on Chinese video site Bilibili and nearly 2 million on YouTube. The game also became the top trending hashtag on Weibo and Douyin, China’s equivalent of Twitter and TikTok respectively.
Retelling stories from the classic Chinese mythology epic Journey to the West, Black Myth: Wukong has excited its fan base by its impressive gameplay and high visual fidelity as shown in the demo reel. While the developer Game Science has yet to announce a release date, it is expected that the game will join a list of Chinese titles to appear on the next generation of consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X.
Game Science was founded in 2015 by a group of developers formerly under Tencent. Before Black Myth: Wukong, the company developed the mobile games Art of War: Red Tides and 100 Heroes, both of which enjoyed moderate fame.