I’m not ready for the furry flesh spider in this Chinese Elden Ring-like RPG
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Through a Wes Anderson-esque stop-motion trailer, publisher Game Science has announced the release window for the upcoming action RPG Black Myth: Wukong. A game that is a bit like Elden Ring when set in Chinese mythology.
We can expect Black Myth: Wukong to launch around mid-2024. It may seem like a while for those who still have their 2022 hats on, but in reality it’s only 18 months. That’s not that long unless you’re a rabbit.
That’s the twist Game Science is putting on things with the Black Myth: Wukong release window trailer. The animation video shows how a rabbit waits his whole life for the game. See, it defies explanation, and you’d just have to look at it to see what I’m talking about.
While it’s clear from the trailer that Black Myth: Wukong is coming to PC, Game Science still hasn’t confirmed which consoles the title will be coming to. Hopefully we’ll see Black Myth on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S as the game will be coming according to “other major mainstream consoles” The Game Science website (opens in new tab).
The bigger picture
Black Myth: Wukong is set in an oriental-inspired fantasy world, where you play as the legendary character of Wukong as you travel through the desolate and unforgiving landscape and defeat fantastic enemies. Inspired by the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West, Wukong will encounter many strange and mythical characters along his path.
There’s a giant, fleshy spider in there somewhere, and frankly, it’s already giving me goosebumps
While the new trailer only features a snippet of gameplay, Game Science announced Black Myth in 2020 with 13 minutes of in-game footage (opens in new tab). The new clip resembles Elden Ring in its tired and grayscale landscape; we can see Wukong battling what appears to be a huge tiger wielding a menacing long sword. In this short fight, it seems the best way to take down this tiger is to punch it and then get away before it takes a hit. In that sense, the attacks also mimic Elden Ring in the hit-and-evade fighting style.
Inspired by Chinese myth and recreating the world of Journey to the West, a fantasy epic along the lines of Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey, we can expect a gigantic landscape full of strange monsters. Exploring these stories in an RPG allows us to get up close and personal with those monsters, for good and for evil: there’s a giant fleshy spider in there somewhere, and frankly it’s already giving me goosebumps.
Long ago
While to me it seems like 2024 isn’t too long to wait, that may be because I’ve only just learned about Black Myth. The project has been in development since 2011; it has taken Game Science 12 years of painstaking work to get to this point.
Game Science talks about the struggle to accomplish this monumental task Black Myth: Wukong’s information page (opens in new tab); it questions whether it did enough work and whether it was all worth it. “During countless nights of overtime, exhausted, we half-jokingly wondered, How much did it matter?” says game science.
Fortunately, Game Science is confident in its long-awaited RPG and is moving full steam ahead to reach its target release window of 2024. In the meantime, we can sit back and wait for more news on Wukong and where he’s headed.