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as one of the few high-standard works in china aimed at the global market,black myth: wukongin terms of localized translation, "the monkey king" supports a total of 12 languages ​​including english, french, german, japanese and russian, basically covering most of the audience in the mainstream game market and pushing the image of sun wukong to the world stage.

however, the wide range of the chinese cultural circle has to some extent crossed the language barrier and profoundly affected areas that players and manufacturers would never notice. like us, the people of southeast asia who grew up watching the 1986 version of "journey to the west" - especially the vietnamese people, also picked up the journey to the west complex deep in their memories after august 20.

vietnam’s black myth: wukong facebook community has 200,000 players

due to cost considerations, black myth: wukong, like most games on the market, did not prepare an authentic translation for vietnamese players, but this did not prevent them from persisting in doing it for their love. soon after the game was released, a private translation group took action. from the words on the plaque to the dubbing of the cutscenes, under the efforts of the "vietnamese translation group", black myth: wukong has almost achieved full localization in vietnam.

there is no official translation, and everything depends on folk translation - chinese players had this experience 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

the popularity of "black myth: wukong" in vietnam is really extraordinary.

nowadays, we are used to the chinese version of the game when it is first released, so it may be difficult for us to imagine such a scene: in the month since the release of "black myth: wukong", at least 6 translated versions have appeared in vietnam, 3 of which made extensive use of ai translation, but the remaining 3 versions were all produced by the acclaimed "vietnamese translation group", and the translation quality has also been recognized by vietnamese players.

take the fastest red team as an example.on august 25, the red team had completed the initial translation. players can get early access by donating 50,000 vietnamese dong (about 14 yuan) to them, and get a 189 mb vietnamese patch for "black myth: wukong".

some players may have no idea about the “localization completed in 5 days”. in comparison, “red dead redemption 2”, which was launched on steam in 2019, was not localized until the end of 2023.elden ringit took at least a few months for the vietnamese version of black myth: wukong to be released. judging from this, the vietnamese localization of black myth: wukong can be said to be very fast.

efficiency close to that of “0day translation”

on august 26, the penguin team (cánh cụt team), which was established less than half a year ago, brought another vietnamese patch for black myth: wukong. compared with the red team, which was rushed, the penguin team had fewer mistranslations and omissions, and the overall quality was higher. currently, the translations of the penguin team have been used by many vietnamese anchors for live broadcasts, including mixigaming, a top anchor with 7.65 million fans.

on september 7, the latest vietnamese translation team, "asia game association" (hội game á châu), did not disappoint the players. the chinese characters on the wall, the lyrics in the music, and all the words that players can see in the game, the asia game association has achieved vietnamese localization as much as possible. this certainly lacks some of the beauty contained in the chinese characters, but you can easily imagine how touched the vietnamese players were when they saw this localization in the game.

the size of the asian game association's yuehua patch is 3.79 gb, which is much larger than the red group and penguin group.

in addition to the text content visible to the naked eye, complete vietnamese dubbing work is also being steadily promoted in the player community. the dubbing team has basically completed the dubbing work of the first four chapters of the game. there are rumors that the dubbing team is trying to contact game science to join the vietnamese dubbing. regardless of whether the rumor is true or not, at least for vietnamese players, this is the first 3a game that supports vietnamese dubbing.

if we are only discussing the localization translation of the game, most countries in the world can find the corresponding private teams. however, the enthusiasm shown by vietnamese players in "black myth: wukong" has obviously gone beyond the scope of the game. in the process of retracing the journey to the west, we will dream back to our childhood when we watched "journey to the west" repeatedly, and the same is true for vietnamese players.

after the release of black myth: wukong, if you search for celestial symphony, the english name of celestial symphony, on youtube, you will most likely find a series of nostalgic comments in the comments section of the relevant videos:

the popularity and influence of the 1986 version of "journey to the west" are well known to everyone. many southeast asian countries, including cambodia, myanmar, malaysia, singapore, etc., introduced this tv series in the last century. but apart from china, the country with the largest audience base and the strongest journey to the west complex may be vietnam.

we can get a glimpse of the vietnamese people's love for "journey to the west" through the memories narrated by zhang jinlai, the actor who played sun wukong in the 1986 version of "journey to the west": in may 2015, vietnamese ambassador to china nguyen van thieu invited several actors from the 1986 version of "journey to the west" to visit the embassy. at the meeting, zhang jinlai recalled that nguyen phu trong, general secretary of the communist party of vietnam, and truong tan sang, president of vietnam, had both met with him during their visits to china, and he himself had visited vietnam three times, and each time he was warmly welcomed by vietnamese fans.

according to incomplete statistics, the 1986 version of "journey to the west" has been replayed hundreds of times on different tv channels in vietnam. in the poor days when the whole village had only one black-and-white tv, "journey to the west" was one of the few entertainment programs for the vietnamese people; now that everyone can afford a tv, "journey to the west" is still a classic worth revisiting. the last time the 1986 version of "journey to the west" was replayed on vtv, the national television station directly under the vietnamese government, was three years ago.

vietnam national television rebroadcasts the show about once every two to three years.

vietnamese media laodong has also tried to analyze the reasons why "journey to the west" has remained popular in vietnam: laodong believes that vietnamese tv dramas' disregard for the youth market has, to a certain extent, led to the phenomenon of the 1986 version of "journey to the west" being rebroadcast over and over again.

at that time, the tv drama market in vietnam was highly competitive. in order to gain ratings, most vietnamese tv dramas would habitually ignore the youth market and target more mainstream adult audiences. over time, although vietnam also had works for young people such as "city mountain songs" and "southern land", both the quality and quantity were far inferior to tv dramas introduced from overseas, especially the 1986 version of "journey to the west", which had an amazing production level at the time and a dramatic plot.

the 1986 version of journey to the west is of course a work for all ages, but the fantastic descriptions of monsters, gods and demons and various magical powers in the tv series can indeed touch the hearts of young children who are not well-versed in the world. now, those children who watched journey to the west have grown up and are willing to pay for the game. the vietnamese single-player game market has welcomed such a phenomenal work.

to be honest, if the sales data of "black myth: wukong" in vietnam is taken out separately, it is not very good. as of september 13, there were only 432 vietnamese reviews of this game on the steam platform. a rough estimate is that the sales in vietnam may be around 10,000 copies at most.

however, in the field of stand-alone 3a games with a buyout model, the performance of "black myth: wukong" in vietnam has caught up with a series of games with long-tail sales, such as "red dead redemption 2" and "elden ring". if the promotion of "black myth: wukong" in the future is strong enough to impress the vietnamese people, the current sales figures can be multiplied several times.

when talking about sales, we certainly cannot ignore the important indicator of local per capita income. according to vna, in 2023, the average monthly income of vietnamese workers will reach 7.1 million vnd (about rmb 2,176), and the price of "black myth: wukong" is as high as 1.299 million vnd (about rmb 375). for most vietnamese players, such a price is probably like us exclaiming at the sky-high prices of japanese games on steam, and we have to grit our teeth to buy it at full price.

many people watch, but few buy - this is the current situation of "black myth" in the vietnamese market. just like many years ago when we looked up to mainstream game markets such as europe, the united states, japan, and south korea, after the release of "black myth: wukong", vietnam also looked up to the chinese game market.

on september 4, vietnamese streamer diomio - xem game asked a familiar question on youtube: "when will vietnamese games have a masterpiece like black myth: wukong?"

in the video, diomio - xem game mentioned that there is no shortage of talent in the vietnamese game market, but capable people do not dare to take the risk. piracy is common in all walks of life in vietnam, and vietnam's own 3a masterpieces may have to wait for a long time.

in the comment section under the video, many vietnamese players wrote down their views on the vietnamese game market. among these long articles, the most popular opinions among players are "talent cultivation", "censorship system" and "social prejudice". everyone generally believes that vietnam should first understand the concept of games, start with independent games, and then consider developing 3a games 100 years later.

if we go back a few years and replace all the "vietnam" in the above text with "china", this argument actually does not seem to be out of place. after all, the article "who murdered our games" written by game science ceo feng ji was only 14 years ago. before the release of "black myth: wukong", chinese players' obsession with the label of "3a games" was no less than that of today's vietnamese players.

of course, vietnam is not the only neighbor affected by "black myth: wukong". thailand, which is deeply influenced by buddhism, like vietnam, produced a thai localized mod overnight in the absence of official thai. this mod ranks 16th in downloads on the nexus mods website and has been downloaded 10,000 times so far.

players in india, another populous country, were also shocked after the release of black myth: wukong. indian youtuber varun mayya even used black myth: wukong in his video to assert that india is incapable of creating 3a games. his core argument is similar to the above-mentioned one. most indian netizens also believe that india cannot be compared with china at this stage.

it is often said that "those involved are confused, but those who are on the sidelines can see more clearly", but this saying does not seem to be true in the global gaming industry.players from neighboring countries who are envious of "black myth: wukong" often overlook the changes in chinese games over the past few years. from the massive emergence of outsourced talents to the exponential growth of genuine users to the world-leading mobile game industry, the transformation of china's gaming environment is inseparable from the long-term and sustainable development of the industry. food must be eaten bite by bite, and games must be made bit by bit.

as a product of high industrialization, the development of 3a games is rooted in a mature game industry chain and a highly developed game market. it is also a microcosm of social progress and a result of growing cultural needs. the current popularity of "black myth: wukong" is a miracle born out of the right time, right place and right people. such success is obviously difficult to mass-produce and cannot be easily replicated.

"black myth: wukong" has made a good start for china's 3a games, and we have also stumbled on the road to lingshan. however, the development of 3a games in vietnam and other countries may still have a long way to go.