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On August 20, four years ago, a golden cicada flapped its wings and changed the timeline of a Chinese single-player game. From then on, the grand proposition of "the first domestic 3A game" was placed on these two thin cicada wings, bumping towards the unknown.

Today, four years later, we have completed the journey west and can finally announce to everyone - open the champagne, all the waiting is worth it, and August 20 is destined to be remembered by generations of Chinese game developers.

OK, if you are ready to read the ratings of the game, then you can stop here. If you go any further, there may be spoilers.

A stream with dense vines, and green grass on all sides

When I first entered the world of Journey to the West, the first impression this place gave me was stunning.

Thanks to the UE5 engine and Youke's lavish investment in art resources, Black Myth: Wukong achieves outstanding visual effects and excellent PC performance optimization.

The overall picture of "Black Myth: Wukong" encompasses the exquisiteness of details and the grandeur of the macro. This not only represents the fine modeling and color adjustment, but also includes the strong Chinese cultural atmosphere achieved by the use of materials and filter adjustment. The game's scene modeling is extremely fine, and the gnarled texture of the trees and the cracked moss on the rocks are clearly visible, enough to be mistaken for the real thing. A large number of decorative stone carvings, buildings, and Buddhist statues are obviously from real scenes.

The water effects in the game are even more amazing, and it is obvious that the details are manually adjusted based on the engine's own effects.

Here we take the Black Wind Mountain Checkpoint as an example. The stream in the forest is clear and bright at a slow flow rate. The moss on the rocks at the bottom of the pool reflects the river water as green as a jade. When you step on it, ripples spread out in circles, which is full of Chinese garden feeling. Going back to the source, the steep slope rapids are rolling with white waves, coupled with the lush vegetation on both sides and the sound of stepping on the water, it makes people feel as if they are in it, unable to distinguish between reality and illusion.

As for the battle performances and animation cutscenes outside the scenes, they also demonstrate the ingenuity of game science in conveying the culture and art of Journey to the West.

In the battle performances of "Black Myth: Wukong", one-shot shooting achieved by rotating the perspective of a single camera was used extensively.

As soon as the game starts, you will see a battle performance that is as expressive as "Krato beats Balder" or even better. In the second half of the battle, the camera is firmly locked on the weapons of the two opposing sides. As the characters flash around and their weapons swing in turn, the scene is full of wind and clouds, and metal and iron clash, which makes people feel blood boiling and shout "Fuck!"

It’s a bit of a riddle, but in order to avoid spoilers, I won’t post pictures here.

In addition, Game Science has also taken the initiative to touch upon the subject of "giant BOSS" which needs to be treated carefully in the field of game design, and has achieved amazing performance effects. There are many scenes in the game where units of huge size differences gather together. At this time, buildings, destiny people and BOSS appear on the same screen. Although the size difference is huge, they all maintain consistent modeling accuracy. The actual effect is simply incredible.

The forewords and postscripts between chapters are a perfect display of artistic accomplishment. Game Science has produced multiple animations of different styles in this section, telling completely different stories, using a variety of painting styles and animation techniques such as hand-painted, puppetry, and Ghibli. The themes also span a huge range, covering allusive stories and Chinese fables, and without exception, they are accompanied by exclusive super-high-quality BGM, which is like watching "Chinese Tales". Among all the games I have played, the presentation of these inter-chapter stories is unique, and the amount of artistic elements and narrative information is unprecedented.

To avoid spoilers, just post a picture of Afanti so you can get a feel for the style.

With excellent graphics capabilities, Black Myth: Wukong's PC optimization is also quite good. Those who have used the official performance test software may have already known this. In our actual play, the 3080 and 4070tis configuration machines can rely on the DLSS function to maintain 60 frames in the 4K extreme image quality option without ray tracing. It is recommended that you turn on the relevant options when playing. In other words, as long as you have a current mainstream gaming graphics card, Black Myth: Wukong can at least let you play comfortably at 2K resolution.

Eighty-one difficulties stand in the way, seventy-two changes defeat the enemy

Although I really want to start a monkey learning forum in the review and talk to everyone about what the story of "Black Myth: Wukong" is about, in order to avoid spoilers, I will only give a brief outline. In the game, the destined person needs to go back to the west, find several rare treasures, defeat many powerful enemies, see the ups and downs of the world, and experience the disasters of the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance.

The monsters you are familiar with in Journey to the West have more magic weapons and skills. Some of them have established their own sects and established their own golden bodies. Some of them are swindling people with big banners. They want to slay monsters and bring peace to the world. With the mediocre skills and magic skills of the man of destiny, it is really impossible to defeat them. At this time, relying on the understanding of the original work, to find out the methods of the Monkey King in the past has become the key to victory.

Once again, Black Myth: Wukong is not a soul-like game, and there is no death penalty in terms of strength. It is more like a traditional action game like the new God of War. Just like the previous demo, the combat system of Black Myth: Wukong is still built with stick power as the core resource. The regular combat rhythm is to use light attacks to gain stick power and accumulate resources, and heavy attacks to consume stick power and deal high damage.

In addition to light and heavy attacks, Tianmingren also has three stances, corresponding to different action derivatives and heavy attack characteristics. The light and heavy attacks of the chopping stick are combined with the "hand-over skill" with the ability to see through judgment, which can counter the enemy's attack and perform cool combos. The finishing move is powerful and has high damage, but the arm is short and it is easy to miss. The standing stick can be propped up high to avoid some ground damage, and can attack enemies with high hit points, but being knocked to the ground will take a long time to stiffen, which is extremely embarrassing. The stick-poking style hand-over skill derives a backward jump action, which can avoid enemy attacks and launch a counterattack at the same time, and is the most flexible.

This system is very similar to the "upper, middle, and lower" in Nioh, providing players with special means to deal with different types of enemies. Using specific stances to face enemies with different characteristics is also an important learning content in the game process. When you use perfect dodges and light attacks to accumulate four levels of stick stance, and then watch Monkey King descend from the sky to hit a fatal blow, it is enough to satisfy all your fantasies about the Monkey King.

In addition to stances and stick positions, spells and transformations are also important components of combat. Spells that have been known to everyone in previous demonstrations, such as immobilization, gathering and dispersing energy, copper head and iron arms, anchoring skills, and external incarnation, will be gradually unlocked as the game progresses. They all consume mana, but the effects are extremely powerful and are important aids in combat.

However, it is worth mentioning that, apart from some special elixirs and special equipment, there is no convenient means of actively restoring mana in the game. How much mana to spend on monsters on the road has become the most important resource management element in the game.

As for the transformation system, it is more diverse and interesting. In fact, there are two transformation systems in the game. One is the incarnation system that is unlocked through the plot and side quests. Mi Daoren's Ou Bao and Guang Zhi's Chi Chao both belong to this category. They will completely change the Tianmingren's action system and give new special skills, each of which has unique uses.

The other set is the spirit obtained after killing elite monsters. It is very similar to the soul core monster skills in "Nioh 2", which allows you to use a certain skill of this monster in battle. For example, the spirit of the big-headed monk ghost can let you send a powerful headbutt, which will make most enemies stiff and force them into "my turn". Incredibly, almost every monster in the game can provide spirits for the destiny man, and the number is far more than 50, and can be used with the stick combo to perform cool combos. For example, I especially like to follow the heavy stick finishing move with a tiger knife slash. Not only is the damage high and the toughness strong, but the clean and neat shots and handsome movements make this set of combos full of excitement.

As for the RPG development elements of "Black Myth: Wukong", they are composed of three subsystems: upgrades, equipment, and consumables. It can be said that the system is diverse but quite light.

To upgrade the characters in Black Myth: Wukong, you need to consume the spiritual points gained by killing monsters or exploring. The skill tree itself is simple and clear. You can spend points to improve the basic attributes of the Man of Destiny, or improve the action performance of the entire stick system, so that the combination of light and heavy attacks can derive more diverse actions. If you prefer spells, you can also consume resources to make them produce some wonderful changes. For example, the immobilization skill can be turned into a group control skill after upgrading. Now the old monkey is no longer afraid of being beaten to death by monsters. After clicking on the relevant branch, the gathering and dispersion of qi can support players to use heavy sticks instead of the original invisibility-breaking blow, turning the Man of Destiny into an invisible "assassin" who steals heavy blows.

The Monkey King has the Ruyi Golden Cudgel, Lotus Silk Cloud-Walking Shoes, and Chainmail Golden Armor, so the Destiny Man can't be bad at equipment. As the main story progresses and maps are collected, players will gradually unlock the casting of weapons and armor. In addition to basic defense attributes, weapons and equipment will also have some simple set effects such as "accelerate skill rotation after perfect dodge" or "increase damage after poisoning". Although the equipment has attributes, they will neither change the Destiny Man's action form nor allow you to knock out 8-digit numbers with one stick.

As for consumables, in Journey to the West, they are naturally elixirs. In the novels of gods and demons, it is normal to take a Nine-turn Power Pill and then break through in battle. It is also the same in Black Myth: Wukong. The man of destiny can refine various elixirs through specific NPCs. The heavenly elixir can consume rare materials to permanently increase the various basic attributes of Monkey King, while the elixir of the world is all limited-time buff. But don't underestimate these elixir of the world. Some of them can make the man of destiny more "powerful" in a short period of time. Some of the immortal products of the world can even make you revive with full blood and regain your strength when you are knocked down by a strong enemy.

Spells, skill points, equipment, and consumables give the combat system of Black Myth: Wukong a vague concept of genres, giving players more diverse game style choices. You can rely on the most basic precision dodges and stick combos to face the challenges of all kinds of monsters head-on; or you can summon a group of monkeys at the beginning of the battle, and then turn yourself into a sword wolf coach with a built-in speaker to bully the weak with your strength.

Despite this, "Black Myth: Wukong" still won't let you find an obvious optimal solution in this simple RPG system. All the stylized extensions given by external objects are extremely restrained in terms of numbers, so that the development elements are always in a position that is there but not critical. Action is still the core protagonist of the game experience. Even if you allocate all your skill points to spells, and match them with various related equipment and elixirs, if you can't understand the flaws in the unique skills of those big monsters, the destined person will still be reborn and start all over again.

Why are there so many evil spirits?

As we guessed, Black Myth: Wukong is not an open world game, but a linear action game based on a large sandbox, and the levels are not physically connected to each other. However, it is not absolute, a certain level may give you an extra surprise and make you cry instantly, but let's put it aside for now.

This is a very common design in the field of action games. God of War, Devil May Cry, and Bayonetta all do this. It is not special, but game science has achieved qualitative change through quantitative change by piling up materials.

In other words, the world is really, really big!!

In the last trial report, we mentioned that the first level of the game, Black Wind Mountain, is about three times the size of Purple Cloud Mountain. There are 10 boss battles in this map, and the recommended play time is about 4 hours. However, in the official version of "Black Myth: Wukong", Black Wind Mountain is the smallest level in the whole game...

Believe me, for a game reviewer, this is pretty depressing.

Starting from the second chapter, the physical size of each level is at least twice that of Black Wind Mountain. In addition to the miscellaneous soldiers, bosses and demon kings, there are also enlightenment points, treasure chests for obtaining resources, various collectibles and important plot props scattered everywhere. These contents make "Black Myth: Wukong" a game of super large volume. Just exploring the map carefully and completing the main content without deliberately touching the hidden branches and bosses in the map, one level may take 6 to 8 hours. It takes about 40 hours to simply clear the main line, and it is even more difficult to estimate the complete collection.

What's even more outrageous is that Game Science has used almost 40% of the game's total volume as hidden content. In addition to dozens of named bosses with large health bars hidden in the corners of the map, and several NPCs with plots and functions that require players to complete corresponding hidden tasks to trigger, even many chapter-level bosses can be made into hidden side quests to reduce the difficulty. There may even be hidden maps in each chapter that are related to the direction of the main plot. These hidden maps may involve time travel or the other world, and in short, they cannot be discovered by "licking the map".

As of the time of this post, we still haven't found the triggering conditions for some hidden bosses and endings, and we're not sure how much Game Science has hidden in the mountains. When everyone plays the official version, if you can't find a monster, boss, or NPC in the trailer after searching the entire game, don't be surprised, this is normal, because we may not have found it either, but they really exist in the game.

In addition, Youke was very cunning and presented all the game texts, including the descriptions of game achievements, in the ancient vernacular of the time when Journey to the West was written, and many of them were poems that contained a lot of information. Using a peek at the descriptions of achievements to infer the content of the game is like playing a charade, which is very difficult.

All I can say to this is “You did a great job!”

There are always incomplete pages in the true scriptures, and the golden body is not perfect

As the AAA debut of Game Science, Black Myth: Wukong has polished almost all of its content to perfection through extreme resource investment and manual detail adjustment. However, the development experience cannot be compensated by creativity and resources, and it depends on time and project refinement. This is almost the only shortcoming of the official version of Black Myth: Wukong.

So the thing we were most worried about before the release happened.

We mentioned it during the previous trial play that the Black Wind Mountain level is essentially a level design method that involves drawing lines and setting up roads on a large parking lot and then scattering beans to create soldiers, which is an acceptable level design method.

But after Black Wind Mountain, the maps of Yellow Wind Ridge, Xiao Xitian and other levels are more than three times the size of Black Wind Mountain. The increase in content not only increases the experience time, but also magnifies the shortcomings of map design. These maps are like Black Wind Mountain, which are large open terrains, but are geographically located in deserts and snow-capped mountains. The scenery is not as diverse as that of Black Wind Mountain. There is a lack of memory focus for finding the way through reference objects, and it is super easy to get lost. As a result, I often have to spend a long time traversing the entire map, and then take a fork in the road that seems to have never been set foot on, and find a treasure chest that has been opened at the end.

In addition, Game Science has invested a lot of money in the scene art resources of Black Myth. Any transition scene that has no game functionality has been designed with a lot of aesthetics, leaving natural scenery or cultural relics, and modeling the scene in a one-to-one ratio with real people. This makes any area in the game look like a tourist rest area in a famous mountain scenic spot, with stories and bosses. You can think of this game as a Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist travel simulator, but you can't help but complain that "this map looks empty."

Where is the way?

So, the above is all the answers that Game Science has submitted after 6 years of work. The praise and inadequacy of Black Myth: Wukong have been explained above and I will not say more. At this moment, listening to "Where is the Way Forward" in my ears, looking at the people on the development staff list who have worked hard for Black Myth: Wukong since 2018, I would like to talk about something else.

Looking back at the trailer in 2020, everyone only regarded it as a budget scam. No one would believe that this monkey would really stand in front of everyone today with quality and completion far exceeding expectations. Maybe there will never be a domestic game like "Black Myth: Wukong" that gambles its life and property regardless of cost, but the pipeline and experience accumulated by this project may become a lifelong asset for Chinese single-player game developers.

This group of people spent 6 years bringing domestic games to a whole new level and paved the way for those who came after them. This is a thoroughfare for Chinese games, and Youke, who is at the forefront, told us.

“The road ahead is long and arduous, but the path is just under our feet.”

Postscript: Why we gave Black Myth a full score

Although the art and performance of Black Myth: Wukong have reached the world's top level, the gameplay and action system are solid and interesting, the content is large and satisfying, and its narrative style and artistic expression are unique to players in the East Asian cultural circle, especially Chinese players who grew up watching Journey to the West. However, Black Myth: Wukong is still not perfect. The lack of experience in level design and the excessive resource stacking have indeed caused actual damage to the experience.

Then the question comes back, why should we give "Black Myth: Wukong" a full score?

As a game editor, it is a principle that you need to learn when you enter the industry to evaluate a work from a neutral and objective perspective without any filter. This principle should be adhered to even more for domestic games. Our players have experienced "Blood Lion", "Earth OL" and "Fantasy", and have seen too many farces where media platforms ended up in a mess.

But in the case of Black Myth, I may have to make an exception.

As a Chinese player who grew up watching the animation and TV series of Journey to the West, while playing Black Myth: Wukong, I resonated with the designers all the time, appreciated their unreserved presentation of Journey to the West culture, and was impressed by the artistic expression of this game. The filter brought by this deep cultural empathy cannot be neutralized by rational evaluation standards. If the immaturity of level design will cause a deduction in the evaluation of the game, then the gains brought by cultural empathy have already made up for everything.

Besides, "Sword Star" can become the pride of its neighbor because of its excellent performance in the international market, so if others can do it, why can't I do it?