China’s Black Myth: Wukong breaks records set by Cyberpunk, Elden Ring

Black Myth: Wukong, an action-adventure title based on the tragedy of the legendary Monkey King, has amassed more than 1.3 million concurrent players on Steam shortly after its global debut on Tuesday. That surpassed the records set by very popular titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring, according to the SteamDB data tracker. He overtook him in fifth place Dota 2 and then The Lost Ark with that metric measuring the maximum number of people playing the game on Steam at any one time worldwide.

A strong first-day performance may help support expectations that China’s more than $40 billion gambling arena is turning a corner after years of relentless regulatory scrutiny. This summer has marked an unusually busy series of major debuts, including from Tencent DnF MobileNetEase Inc Naraka: Bladepoint and indie studio Mihoyo’s ZZZ.

of Wukong The release generated huge attention in part because, unlike many of Tencent’s successful productions, it was developed entirely by local studio Game Science. Tencent has an investment in the Hangzhou-based developer and also handles domestic publishing for the game on its own Steam-like WeGame platform. SteamDB does not track that service.

Also available on PlayStation 5 from Sony Group Corp. Wukong offers serious combat that has been compared to FromSoftware’s challenge Dark souls series. The title, in development since 2018, is seen by gamers and critics as China’s most serious attempt at a big-budget PC blockbuster that could resonate globally. Previous successes in the country have mostly been in the mobile arena, such as Genshin Impact from Mihoyo.

Major Chinese review sites including IGN China, scored Wukong a 10 out of 10 on the eve of its release. Their peers worldwide gave mostly positive, though slightly lower, ratings, citing some gameplay and translation issues.

Game Science’s founders, including Feng Ji, worked at Tencent before starting their own studio. Tencent bought a 5 percent stake in the startup in 2021, according to corporate registration website Qichacha.