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Can someone explain to me why this huge success? Is it because of the back story of it being based on a Chinese mythical book and that it rings a bell with thi

Can someone explain to me why this huge success? Is it because of the back story of it being based on a Chinese mythical book and that it rings a bell with this billion person sized market? So far, only looking at the trailer, I did not see anything particularly special that would differentiate it from other recent AAA games.

maxglute 2y ago
It's just first PRC AAA game. It's pretty good or rather not bad. Curious Chinese consumers (of which there are many) voting with their wallets because they want more. Helps that it's based on significant literary canon, think LOTR + harry potter + Shakespeare with 500 years of cultural presence. Total War Three Kingdoms also sold well due to PRC consumers, an indigenous production just gets even more attention. I think the game is pretty mid like most assassin's creed games but I like the environment design and how production scanned a lot of temples.
- hkmaxpro 2y ago
  Genshin Impact from miHoYo is also a PRC AAA game before Wukong, but it’s a copycat of the Japanese ACG culture rather than the Chinese culture in Wukong: https://expertbeacon.com/is-genshin-a-aaa-game/ https://expertbeacon.com/is-genshin-a-aaa-game/
  - maxglute 2y ago
    IMO AAA gotcha mobile =/= AAA single player. I'd argue AAA gotcha service probably harder to produce but easier to finance due to profitability. Wukong signally there's potential market to justify PRC studios / investors spending 40-50M on big single player productions. I don't think subsequent efforts are going to bring in nearly as much due to Wukong being first/novelty, but it's progress towards establishing market other than live service. Of course knowing PRC media scape, we're just going to get increasingly large budget wuxia rehashes.
rupertdev 2y ago
It's a fairly good AAA game with souls-like elements, people are very happy to have it.
- madao666 2y ago
  Monkey Magic computer game, I am very happy with this.
stevenwoo 2y ago
From a different thread I saw a Chinese user note that this game includes references to the most popular adaptations in Chinese media including some of the theme music and the most popular written version so many in the Chinese market have a familiar cultural touchstone.
- dannyobrien 2y ago
  Not sure if it counts as part of the Chinese media canon, but if it has references to Japan's adaption, Monkey Magic, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series) they'l catch a few Gen-X anglos with those touchstones too.
lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
They took Elden Ring and added Kung-Fu. It's very similar to what a huge audience already knows, but it's just different enough to feel fresh. Todd McFarlane likes to say that all you need to do to make a hit is to take what's already out there and make it 10% sexier. That's exactly what they did.
- lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
  Huh. Three downvotes for a fairly innocuous post. People here must really dislike the Spawn comic books.
  - oefrha 2y ago
    Gameplay footage of this game was out long before Elden Ring, so saying “they took Elden Ring” is super strange.
    - screye 2y ago
      Elden ring derives from souls like games, and Sun Wukong's combat is in the same family. Nothing wrong with it. Combat styles in gaming are inherently derivative.
      - oefrha 2y ago
        Nothing wrong with derivative, just about every game derives from previous ones. But saying this one is directly derived from Elden Ring makes little sense.
nitwit005 2y ago
The top selling titles generally don't have super unique gameplay. They are frequently sequels.
huydotnet 2y ago
There are many factors here. Two of the most obvious things that I can think of are: almost all Asian kids from the '80s, '90s, and 2000s grew up watching or reading Journey to the West (see how people react to Celestial Symphony OST), the movie was shown on TV every summer. And it's being marketed as China's first AAA title. These things get a lot of people interested.
alienchow 2y ago
Imagine having a book that was written centuries ago that's considered one of the four pillars of great Chinese novel classics. Have that book be arguably the most popular of the four. (Debatable with 3 Kingdoms) The story is told to children since they're young. During a time where the story was adapted into plenty of derivatives like Dragon Ball, one TV show stood out. Every single Chinese, and Southeast Asian kid has watched it growing up. It was THE weekend TV to wait for. The theme songs are extremely catchy. The TV show is put on reruns every once in a while. Entire nations have watched it. Then China, who arguably never had a AAA game title this widely marketed before, writes a sequel loosely based on the original novel and lined the game full of homages and music remixes from the TV show. Western audiences can review however they want, any person who can hear this song in their head "dun dun dudun dun dun dududuuuun pewpewpew pewpewpew" is going to love it even if it's only mildly playable, let alone being actually fun to play. And have you seen the animations? If power rangers were a centuries old story, with statues, temples and mythos around them, and it's the first ever AAA game from the US to be published. The moment you hear "Go Go Power Rangers" you're buying the game.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  I thought the big problem was that most Chinese gamers were biased to mobile multiplayer games, or at least 2D isomorphic games that could be played on tablets. Those games are already pretty famous outside of China at least, this is the first time I’m seeing a 3D game take center stage instead. There are so many versions of the monkey king that I lose track. Like the one that was reincarnated in the modern world as a handsome brother for some reason (late 90s?), then there was a movie with Jackie Chan and Jet Li in it 15 years ago. It made 53 million in the USA at least, which was more than it made in the mainland.
  - alienchow 2y ago
    They were biased to mobile games because it's the most lucrative, and so game studios index on that. If you go further back, there were wildly popular CRPGs that just weren't very widely marketed outside of China. They were AAA grade of that era, but never officially translated nor marketed. Jinyong Heroes, Calamity of Heaven and Earth, Heroes of the Celestial Sword were all popular CRPGs within China on the level of Final Fantasy, but were merely cult classics outside the country. None of them were homages, and didn't have this ethnic level of cultural influence.
spaceheater 2y ago
It is popular because the devs posted that they were blackmailed by DEI consultants, and it blew up since most people are also fed up with it.
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  As always, the DEI bogeyman probably has little if anything to do with the success(or failure) of something.
  - muratsu 2y ago
    The game and the story are good but are nowhere near as polished as some AAA titles (eg it has bad English dub). The DEI contraversies around it caused streamers to talk about the game often and served as advertisement (since the narrative was DEI vs Gamers).
  - spaceheater 2y ago
    there are literally memes about it
  - krapp 2y ago
    [flagged]
dotnet00 2y ago
I think besides the points made by others about popularity with asian audiences, there's also the point that western gamers have likely at least heard of Wukong as a character, so it doesn't immediately come off as intended only for asian audiences. They also seemed to advertise a lot on X.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  Yeah this contributes to it as well I think. I don't play a lot of video games (I haven't played this one either), but I know the name Wukong and its origin from various video games I've played such as Warframe and WoW. So when I saw a trailer for a game called Wukong it caught my eye immediately.
routerl 2y ago
It's not a "Chinese mythical book", it's one of the classical novels of Chinese civilization. Think of it as a cross between Lord of the Rings and The Iliad, but containing extensive references to ancient Chinese tales, culture, religion (especially Buddhism), and history (the central monk character in the story is based on a real, and revered, historical monk). It also has beloved and well known characters who have featured in all kinds of Chinese stories and media for centuries: e.g. Erlang (no relation to the programming language), who is prominently in the opening cutscene, and is often found in stories accompanied by Nezha (who is so popular that generations of Chinese kids grew up hearing this[0] song and watching that show). And this is by no means just a Chinese phenomenon. This story, Journey to the West, is a cultural keystone in all of Asia: Dragonball is very much based on Journey to the West[1], and "Son Goku" is just the Japanese pronunciation of the name "Sun Wukong", who is the monkey protagonist of this game. The two share many of their powers and characteristics, including flying around on a magic cloud and becoming powerful enough to challenge literal gods. Finally, this is perhaps the first "postmodern" retelling of this extremely popular story. The game is called "black myth" because it is clearly darker and more serious than previous retellings of this story. For someone who knows this story well (i.e. basically anyone who grew up in Asia), it is a fresh version of an old classic. In this sense, this game is the equivalent of what The Witcher was for (mainly Eastern) Europeans; it takes legends, stories, superstitions you grew up hearing about (e.g. vampires, werewolves, etc) and breathes new life into them. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_KTrCetcM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_KTrCetcM [1] even down to having a cowardly pigman companion, Bajie, who is also in this game.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Another American equivalent might be Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed, or any of the Wild West cowboys; Billy the Kid or Wyatt Earp. For this crowd, maybe the story of Steve Jobs and Apple.
honkycat 2y ago
> So far, only looking at the trailer, I did not see anything particularly special that would differentiate it from other recent AAA games. It has absolutely crazy gorgeous graphics, games at this level do not come out often at all. It is tied into an extremely popular mythology, and one that western audiences are warming up to. It implements the popular "soulslike" genre, which is massively popular with hardcore gamers. It is VERY rare that a new franchise, from a new company, in a niche genre is released with this level of graphical fidelity and polish. Everything EA and Ubisoft and Sony produce these days, who are mostly responsible for the high-fidelity games made recently, is copy-paste open world collect-a-thon bullshit for a casual audience. This game is well designed, has good word of mouth, and is cool! And yes: people in SEA are interested because it is an implementation of one of THEIR popular stories, as opposed to another Tolkien rehash. And it is super cool! Kung fu is cool!
leoprctmp 2y ago
Almost every Chinese person is familiar with this myth and its characters. When I was a child, I used to watch the TV series multiple times every year. This mythological story not only features vivid characters and a grand setting, but also contains subtle metaphors about life philosophy that continue to be interpreted to this day.
Ferret7446 2y ago
It's just a very good game. There aren't that many good AAA games recently; quite a few of them are, to put it bluntly, garbage (e.g., Starfield, Suicide Squad, Concorde, Star Wars Outlaws). (I'm not saying there aren't any good AAA games recently, just that they're less common now, and Wukong is one of them)

maxglute 2y ago

It's just first PRC AAA game. It's pretty good or rather not bad. Curious Chinese consumers (of which there are many) voting with their wallets because they want more. Helps that it's based on significant literary canon, think LOTR + harry potter + Shakespeare with 500 years of cultural presence. Total War Three Kingdoms also sold well due to PRC consumers, an indigenous production just gets even more attention. I think the game is pretty mid like most assassin's creed games but I like the environment design and how production scanned a lot of temples.

hkmaxpro 2y ago
Genshin Impact from miHoYo is also a PRC AAA game before Wukong, but it’s a copycat of the Japanese ACG culture rather than the Chinese culture in Wukong: https://expertbeacon.com/is-genshin-a-aaa-game/ https://expertbeacon.com/is-genshin-a-aaa-game/
- maxglute 2y ago
  IMO AAA gotcha mobile =/= AAA single player. I'd argue AAA gotcha service probably harder to produce but easier to finance due to profitability. Wukong signally there's potential market to justify PRC studios / investors spending 40-50M on big single player productions. I don't think subsequent efforts are going to bring in nearly as much due to Wukong being first/novelty, but it's progress towards establishing market other than live service. Of course knowing PRC media scape, we're just going to get increasingly large budget wuxia rehashes.

rupertdev 2y ago

It's a fairly good AAA game with souls-like elements, people are very happy to have it.

madao666 2y ago
Monkey Magic computer game, I am very happy with this.

stevenwoo 2y ago

From a different thread I saw a Chinese user note that this game includes references to the most popular adaptations in Chinese media including some of the theme music and the most popular written version so many in the Chinese market have a familiar cultural touchstone.

dannyobrien 2y ago
Not sure if it counts as part of the Chinese media canon, but if it has references to Japan's adaption, Monkey Magic, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series) they'l catch a few Gen-X anglos with those touchstones too.

lylejantzi3rd 2y ago

They took Elden Ring and added Kung-Fu. It's very similar to what a huge audience already knows, but it's just different enough to feel fresh. Todd McFarlane likes to say that all you need to do to make a hit is to take what's already out there and make it 10% sexier. That's exactly what they did.

lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
Huh. Three downvotes for a fairly innocuous post. People here must really dislike the Spawn comic books.
- oefrha 2y ago
  Gameplay footage of this game was out long before Elden Ring, so saying “they took Elden Ring” is super strange.
  - screye 2y ago
    Elden ring derives from souls like games, and Sun Wukong's combat is in the same family. Nothing wrong with it. Combat styles in gaming are inherently derivative.
    - oefrha 2y ago
      Nothing wrong with derivative, just about every game derives from previous ones. But saying this one is directly derived from Elden Ring makes little sense.

nitwit005 2y ago

The top selling titles generally don't have super unique gameplay. They are frequently sequels.

huydotnet 2y ago

There are many factors here. Two of the most obvious things that I can think of are: almost all Asian kids from the '80s, '90s, and 2000s grew up watching or reading Journey to the West (see how people react to Celestial Symphony OST), the movie was shown on TV every summer. And it's being marketed as China's first AAA title. These things get a lot of people interested.

alienchow 2y ago

Imagine having a book that was written centuries ago that's considered one of the four pillars of great Chinese novel classics. Have that book be arguably the most popular of the four. (Debatable with 3 Kingdoms) The story is told to children since they're young. During a time where the story was adapted into plenty of derivatives like Dragon Ball, one TV show stood out. Every single Chinese, and Southeast Asian kid has watched it growing up. It was THE weekend TV to wait for. The theme songs are extremely catchy. The TV show is put on reruns every once in a while. Entire nations have watched it. Then China, who arguably never had a AAA game title this widely marketed before, writes a sequel loosely based on the original novel and lined the game full of homages and music remixes from the TV show. Western audiences can review however they want, any person who can hear this song in their head "dun dun dudun dun dun dududuuuun pewpewpew pewpewpew" is going to love it even if it's only mildly playable, let alone being actually fun to play. And have you seen the animations? If power rangers were a centuries old story, with statues, temples and mythos around them, and it's the first ever AAA game from the US to be published. The moment you hear "Go Go Power Rangers" you're buying the game.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
I thought the big problem was that most Chinese gamers were biased to mobile multiplayer games, or at least 2D isomorphic games that could be played on tablets. Those games are already pretty famous outside of China at least, this is the first time I’m seeing a 3D game take center stage instead. There are so many versions of the monkey king that I lose track. Like the one that was reincarnated in the modern world as a handsome brother for some reason (late 90s?), then there was a movie with Jackie Chan and Jet Li in it 15 years ago. It made 53 million in the USA at least, which was more than it made in the mainland.
- alienchow 2y ago
  They were biased to mobile games because it's the most lucrative, and so game studios index on that. If you go further back, there were wildly popular CRPGs that just weren't very widely marketed outside of China. They were AAA grade of that era, but never officially translated nor marketed. Jinyong Heroes, Calamity of Heaven and Earth, Heroes of the Celestial Sword were all popular CRPGs within China on the level of Final Fantasy, but were merely cult classics outside the country. None of them were homages, and didn't have this ethnic level of cultural influence.

spaceheater 2y ago

It is popular because the devs posted that they were blackmailed by DEI consultants, and it blew up since most people are also fed up with it.

knowaveragejoe 2y ago
As always, the DEI bogeyman probably has little if anything to do with the success(or failure) of something.
- muratsu 2y ago
  The game and the story are good but are nowhere near as polished as some AAA titles (eg it has bad English dub). The DEI contraversies around it caused streamers to talk about the game often and served as advertisement (since the narrative was DEI vs Gamers).
- spaceheater 2y ago
  there are literally memes about it
- krapp 2y ago
  [flagged]

dotnet00 2y ago

I think besides the points made by others about popularity with asian audiences, there's also the point that western gamers have likely at least heard of Wukong as a character, so it doesn't immediately come off as intended only for asian audiences. They also seemed to advertise a lot on X.

nozzlegear 2y ago
Yeah this contributes to it as well I think. I don't play a lot of video games (I haven't played this one either), but I know the name Wukong and its origin from various video games I've played such as Warframe and WoW. So when I saw a trailer for a game called Wukong it caught my eye immediately.

routerl 2y ago

It's not a "Chinese mythical book", it's one of the classical novels of Chinese civilization. Think of it as a cross between Lord of the Rings and The Iliad, but containing extensive references to ancient Chinese tales, culture, religion (especially Buddhism), and history (the central monk character in the story is based on a real, and revered, historical monk). It also has beloved and well known characters who have featured in all kinds of Chinese stories and media for centuries: e.g. Erlang (no relation to the programming language), who is prominently in the opening cutscene, and is often found in stories accompanied by Nezha (who is so popular that generations of Chinese kids grew up hearing this[0] song and watching that show). And this is by no means just a Chinese phenomenon. This story, Journey to the West, is a cultural keystone in all of Asia: Dragonball is very much based on Journey to the West[1], and "Son Goku" is just the Japanese pronunciation of the name "Sun Wukong", who is the monkey protagonist of this game. The two share many of their powers and characteristics, including flying around on a magic cloud and becoming powerful enough to challenge literal gods. Finally, this is perhaps the first "postmodern" retelling of this extremely popular story. The game is called "black myth" because it is clearly darker and more serious than previous retellings of this story. For someone who knows this story well (i.e. basically anyone who grew up in Asia), it is a fresh version of an old classic. In this sense, this game is the equivalent of what The Witcher was for (mainly Eastern) Europeans; it takes legends, stories, superstitions you grew up hearing about (e.g. vampires, werewolves, etc) and breathes new life into them. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_KTrCetcM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_KTrCetcM [1] even down to having a cowardly pigman companion, Bajie, who is also in this game.

fragmede 2y ago
Another American equivalent might be Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed, or any of the Wild West cowboys; Billy the Kid or Wyatt Earp. For this crowd, maybe the story of Steve Jobs and Apple.

honkycat 2y ago

> So far, only looking at the trailer, I did not see anything particularly special that would differentiate it from other recent AAA games. It has absolutely crazy gorgeous graphics, games at this level do not come out often at all. It is tied into an extremely popular mythology, and one that western audiences are warming up to. It implements the popular "soulslike" genre, which is massively popular with hardcore gamers. It is VERY rare that a new franchise, from a new company, in a niche genre is released with this level of graphical fidelity and polish. Everything EA and Ubisoft and Sony produce these days, who are mostly responsible for the high-fidelity games made recently, is copy-paste open world collect-a-thon bullshit for a casual audience. This game is well designed, has good word of mouth, and is cool! And yes: people in SEA are interested because it is an implementation of one of THEIR popular stories, as opposed to another Tolkien rehash. And it is super cool! Kung fu is cool!

leoprctmp 2y ago

Almost every Chinese person is familiar with this myth and its characters. When I was a child, I used to watch the TV series multiple times every year. This mythological story not only features vivid characters and a grand setting, but also contains subtle metaphors about life philosophy that continue to be interpreted to this day.

Ferret7446 2y ago

It's just a very good game. There aren't that many good AAA games recently; quite a few of them are, to put it bluntly, garbage (e.g., Starfield, Suicide Squad, Concorde, Star Wars Outlaws). (I'm not saying there aren't any good AAA games recently, just that they're less common now, and Wukong is one of them)