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Produced by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm"

Author: Wu Neng

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The phenomenal hit "Black Myth: Wukong" is no longer just a game.

"The first college student in the village", "The Chinese gaming industry has finally waited for its own "The Wandering Earth", "praises are overwhelming on social media. As the first domestic 3A game masterpiece, "Black Myth: Wukong" has been eagerly awaited since the release of the first 13-minute trailer in 2020, and the discussion has never stopped.

Judging from various data, it has indeed lived up to expectations. On August 21, the second day of the global unlock, the data of the first day was refreshed again. At 22:00, the number of concurrent online users was close to 2.36 million, ranking second among the games with the most concurrent online users in the history of Steam platform, breaking the historical record of the highest number of online users of pure stand-alone games on Steam, and surpassing well-known games such as "Cyberpunk 2077" and "Elden Ring".

In terms of commercial performance, Black Myth: Wukong has reached cooperation with more than 10 companies including NVIDIA, Hisense, JD.com, Lenovo, Didi, etc. Luckin's co-branded peripherals were sold out immediately after they were launched, which made Luckin's Chief Growth Officer Yang Fei post on WeChat Moments, "The system almost crashed. The male purchasing power overturned the team's cognition this morning." Surprisingly, it even brought Shanxi tourism to the forefront - the game was filmed in 36 scenic spots in China, 27 of which were in Shanxi Province.

Amid the praise, Black Myth: Wukong has become a "symbol". The "journey to learn" of the production team behind it, Game Science, has added a halo. Founder Feng Ji and co-founder Yang Qi were members of Tencent Quantum Studio in their early years. The goal of leading "God of War" was to surpass "World of Warcraft", but the game was deformed under the pressure of revenue. Soon after the launch, the two resigned to start their own business. In 2020, they returned with Black Myth: Wukong. Tencent came to seek investment. Feng Ji specifically emphasized "not interfering in decision-making and not controlling distribution", which is why Tencent's direct shareholding in Game Science is only 5%.

Let players face their destiny in the game, and the production team outside the game slay the dragon in middle age. These are stories that people want to see and are willing to accept.

A gamer told Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm", "Black Myth is transforming from a product into a phenomenon, and it is difficult to view it from a product perspective alone."

But no matter how much expectations, values, and symbolic meanings it carries, don’t forget that "Black Myth: Wukong" is still a game. Whether it is fun or not is a more important evaluation criterion, and this is also what its production team cares about.

In the early morning of August 20, Feng Ji posted a Weibo, mentioning that many friends wanted to buy the game to support it, but were worried about the game's difficulty, "They bought it, but didn't plan to play it." While expressing his gratitude, he also specifically explained that in the last year before the release, the topic he discussed most with the planners was "how to increase the flexibility and tolerance of the game's difficulty." They wanted to "have both," so that even action novices could play the game well.

So, back to the game itself, is it fun? Does it really have both? Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" talked to game action novices, veteran gamers, industry professionals, and game entrepreneurs. They all gave the highest evaluation of visual effects such as art and music, but there was a split in the game experience. Some ordinary gamers were discouraged by the difficulty, while some veteran gamers played to the third chapter and thought that the difficulty was relatively simple but fun. However, these experiences did not affect their high evaluation of the game, because the game's "long board areas are too long."

01

“Black Myth: Wukong may be fun, but it’s not suitable for workers like me.”

Ordinary game player office worker

I am an ordinary gamer. I started playing 3A masterpieces in college and have played almost all mainstream 3A masterpieces, but I have never been used to soul-like games like "Black Myth: Wukong" (referring to some top action games with high story, high level difficulty, high gaming experience and high aesthetic design).

I’ve played famous games of the same genre before, such as “Dark Souls” and “Sekiro”, but was discouraged by the difficulty of the games. I didn’t play them in depth. Basically, I would die dozens of times in the first few levels and then give up the game.

I was looking forward to Black Myth: Wukong at first. My friend bought it for me yesterday, and it was like a testimony of youthful friendship. If I was still in school ten years ago, I would have a group of good brothers and buddies studying how to pass the game every day, which would have been very interesting. But now, I am 28 years old and have been working for many years. When I play it, I find that my friends who used to look forward to a 3A masterpiece in China are not around me, and I feel a little disappointed.

I would give up playing it, mainly because of the difficulty.

I got stuck on the first level more than a dozen times and for half an hour, and I just couldn't beat the boss. And I'm not the kind of player who likes to fight bosses. I spend most of my time wandering around the map and looking for game Easter eggs. I kept getting stuck here and couldn't pass it. I kept repeating the same actions over and over again. It would be great if there was a difficulty adjustment.

Finally, after playing for an hour and fifty minutes, I asked for a refund.

I think this kind of game is not very friendly to office workers like me. I originally wanted to relax after get off work by playing games, not to "seek abuse". I play games now just for fun, I like to kill 999 with one sword, this is human nature. For a game as difficult as "Black Myth: Wukong", it is not certain that many people will spend a lot of energy to play it. Beautiful things need a lot of time to experience, this is not the problem of the game, but I don't have more energy to experience it properly.

I am still more suitable for games with lower difficulty such as the Devil May Cry series and Gu Jian 3.

After I quit the game, I sent a red envelope to my friend to return the refund, and planned to get together on the weekend. Black Myth: Wukong may be fun, but it doesn't seem to be suitable for a worker like me.

02

Play for 15 hours in one go, "The future of Chinese 3A games will stand on the shoulders of Black Myth: Wukong"

Senior action game player UP host

Of course it’s fun, and a single-player game with the most online players in the world must be powerful.

The game performance of Black Myth: Wukong is top-notch for Chinese people. Except for the buttons and Arabic numerals, all other elements are from Chinese culture. If we want to break down the performance, the graphics advantage of the Unreal Engine 5 is undoubtedly unquestionable. With the support of top-notch graphics, Game Science can be said to have produced the best optimized Unreal Engine 5 masterpiece in the world.

As for the immersiveness of the plot, this is a matter of opinion. I am now experiencing the third chapter, and the chapters are more like a chapter novel, with less coherence, but the details are amazing. All monsters have picture albums, as well as their own stories, introductions, paintings and poems. If you are willing to watch them in detail, I believe you will have a new understanding of the plot of a chapter.

As an old action game player, "Black Myth: Wukong" gave me a relatively simple experience. Except for the boss Tiger Vanguard in the second round, I killed all other bosses within three lives. I believe that friends who have never played the game can also get started quickly, but inexperienced friends may not find how to kill some monsters quickly.

In terms of the character growth curve, the most obvious feeling is that you can change from a monkey who can only play with a stick to a "Great Sage" who is proficient in spells and counters any move. This growth is very obvious in terms of the gameplay feel and means of dealing with enemies. The producer integrated the enemy's abilities into the protagonist, which somewhat made up for the shortcomings of the overly simple actions. In addition, the number of enemy models in the game far exceeds that of most games, which will make people feel fresh. However, the difficulty curve of "Black Myth: Wukong" is not excellent. I think this is probably due to the experience of the production team.

Based on my 15 hours of gaming experience so far, I think the biggest problem with Black Myth: Wukong is that the production team has no experience in making 3A games and is using clumsy methods to make up for it.

For example, air walls. Many players mentioned that the paths that seemed to be unobstructed were actually blocked by air walls. This even became a hot topic. In fact, the most direct solution is to use manpower and financial resources to cancel the air walls, or redesign the art and close them with visible walls. The map design also shows the lack of experience. Even though the scenery of the game is beautiful, it is not enough in terms of "natural guidance" to the main line. There is no built-in map for reference, and players will easily get lost.

However, many foreign action game manufacturers have been using a set of actions for more than ten or even twenty years, accumulating experience over time, while "Black Myth: Wukong" has only been around for 6 years, and it is still very good to have achieved the current level.

The answer to whether the game is fun or not can be referred to the reviews of foreign media. They will not be swayed by this effect, nor will they be immersed in it. Most well-known media's reviews of the game itself are still of reference value.

I know this game has received a lot of reviews, but it is certain that the future of China's 3A game market is based on Black Myth: Wukong, but how far it can go depends on its own ability. At the same time, its popularity has also allowed global players to see the huge potential of China's stand-alone game market. In the future, foreign game manufacturers will have an extra consideration when making games, even for the money of Chinese players.

03

The industry estimates that the cost is 400 million, so a large manufacturer would spend at least 1.2 billion to 2 billion to make one.

Senior game practitioners have worked in internationally renowned game production companies and domestic game giants.

I was a little hesitant to share my experience. I was worried that my review would not be completely positive and I would be criticized. After playing for a while yesterday, I only dared to express some of my true opinions in the small group.

Overall, I think the ratings given by foreign media are quite objective and reasonable. The world-renowned rating website MetaCritic collected ratings from 54 media, with an overall average score of 82 points, which is the average score of well-known foreign independent game developers. It is still far from the top ones such as "The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears" (96 points) and "Elden Ring" (97 points).

The gap is reflected in the breakthrough and self-consistency of the gameplay design. Breakthrough means that there has been no similar product before, and the self-consistency of the gameplay design means that the construction of the entire gameplay system has achieved very good harmony in all aspects, so that players always have a feeling that "it should be like this." Black Myth: Wukong still has some shortcomings in these two points. The gameplay itself does not have a particularly big breakthrough, and there are also some problems with the self-consistency angle. For example, the game's level design often gives people the feeling that it is neither an open world nor a linear world.

Taken apart, from an artistic perspective, Black Myth: Wukong's portrayal of characters and scenes is extremely accurate, showing top quality, which can definitely be given 10 points. As for the game experience, the action design and boss design are remarkable, but there is still a lot of room for improvement in the level design. After experiencing it, I felt that it was originally intended to be an open world, but later due to the workload or design complexity, it was changed to a linear experience, so it gave an impression that it was neither an open world nor a linear experience, and there were even many counterintuitive "air walls", which was not very similar to games of this era.

In terms of optimization (improving fluency), the current version of the game still has very high requirements for computer configuration, and does not provide enough optimization for relatively ordinary configuration machines. In addition, some bugs can often be seen. The overall feeling is that the final stage was a bit hasty, and there was not enough time to do enough debugging and optimization. I give it 7 points for this.

But the merits outweigh the flaws. I think its excellent aspects have reached the top level. The other problems are understandable for the team's first 3A project. And if it has a few more months, it should be able to be greatly improved on the current basis. Overall, I give it 9.5 points.

As for the subsequent trend of the game, I would like to observe two data. One is the number of simultaneous online players on Steam in the middle of the night. This can show how many foreigners are still playing after the Chinese have logged off. The other is the number of online players after two days to see if it drops quickly. If it does, it means that many players who originally did not play this type of game have broken through the circle and supported it entirely out of their passion for Chinese 3A games.

I am pessimistic about the impact it will have on the gaming industry. The impact of Black Myth: Wukong on the industry is similar to that of The Wandering Earth on the film industry, but the changes it brings may not be as great as The Wandering Earth.

The main reason is the cost-effectiveness. Now, Black Myth: Wukong is made by an independent team, and the cost is much lower than that of large companies. They are an elite team. If they are not so elite, the labor cost may increase due to the increase in iteration time. I estimate that if a large company makes it, the cost may be 3 to 5 times. If their cost is really the 400 million estimated by the industry, then the large company will have to spend at least 1.2 billion to 2 billion. But in terms of sales, if you remove the breakout players brought by the halo of "the first domestic 3A", how many people are willing to spend 300 yuan to buy the game? This account is hard to calculate.

Are investors more willing to invest in stand-alone 3A games? I don’t think so. The risks are high and the cost-effectiveness is low. Moreover, everyone should be able to feel that the success this time is still the dividend of being the “first domestically produced XXX”. Even if the products of the same quality are achieved in the future, whether such a phenomenal success can be achieved is a question mark.

04

“From the game itself to the project team, these are all good stories. At least we can’t discourage those who work hard.”

Employees of major game companies Ordinary game players

I usually play online games like League of Legends and Genshin Impact. But Black Myth: Wukong is still fun. I just didn't expect it to have high requirements for various hardware configurations. My own computer configuration is not bad, but it can't run at the top quality.

Now, I have played for about four or five hours. I felt a little frustrated in the early stage. After repeated exploration and practice, it took me two hours to pass the first level. Later, I became familiar with the system, improved the character's skills, and played much more smoothly. However, I saw in my friends circle that many senior players also got stuck at the boss and gave up.

In fact, the key to playing this kind of game is to see when you can find positive feedback. Positive feedback comes from the character's growth and strength, and from discovering the tricks through your own observation and learning, and finally defeating the boss. This requires concentration. For some novice players, if they keep dying in two hours, they will definitely not want to continue playing.

Apart from the art and graphics, the rest of the gaming experience is pretty standard. Its action mechanism, striking feel, and core gameplay design are not very innovative, but at least they can guarantee a relatively smooth gaming experience.

Many action games also want to have both at the beginning, hoping that more people can experience the fun of action games, but also want to keep a certain upper limit so that core players can also feel that they can play, but it is difficult to achieve both. There have been games that did this before, and as a result, they were complained by senior players as "boring" and became a hot search. However, "Black Myth: Wukong" has not seen such a phenomenon. After watching it for the past two days, although no one can beat it, many people are still very interested.

I work at a big game company, and my colleagues are playing and discussing this game, but as far as I know, NetEase and Mihoyo haven't had any company-level discussions about the game. I don't think it will boost big companies and the industry's enthusiasm for single-player games with a buyout model in the short term.

To develop such a game, it would cost hundreds of millions. For large companies, with such a cost and a development cycle of 3-4 years, considering the revenue, they would definitely adopt a free-to-play plus paid value-added model. Tencent, NetEase, and Mihoyo do not need to take this risk. Back to business, everyone is relatively conservative.

In my opinion, Black Myth: Wukong has too many strengths, which helps it cover up a lot of controversy. There were some controversies related to gender issues before it went online. If it were an ordinary game, it might have been subjected to more severe interrogation. For example, in terms of the restoration of Journey to the West, it is not so good. As players play it in depth, some shortcomings may be exposed.

But everyone is willing to be tolerant. Especially the team behind this. Game Science is a small company with an estimated 100 people. When the trailer premiered in 2020, many people thought it might not be possible. It took more than four years to make it. It was really hard to make it. They also created a story of resistance and not succumbing to their fate.

The entire game, from the game itself to the project team and the history of the project team, is a very good story. Everyone likes such stories and likes "Black Myth: Wukong", not just because of the game itself as an entertainment product.

Many people will support them in their hearts, at least they won’t pour cold water on those who work hard.