Our review of Black Myth: Wukong praises the game as “a generous soulsy-adventure hybrid that works within its limitations and offers a nice challenge to solve with a magical toolbox.” Reviewer Edders even went so far as to find the world more exciting than that of Elden Ring – proper god-level rhetoric. Players seem to agree. The game released last night and has already hit a concurrent player peak of 1.44 million – Steam’s fourth-highest ever, surpassed only by Counter-Strike, Palworld and PUBG. By that metric, it’s the platform’s most popular single-player-only game of all time.
All that goodwill, however, was undone by a Steam Code handout message to streamers and other “content creators” ahead of launch that included some reactionary, non-committal requests — no mention of “trigger words” like “Covid-19,” no talk of “politics” or “feminist propaganda,” and no mention of “Chinese game industry policies, opinions, news, etc.”
The Google document in question appears to have come from a representative of Chinese publisher Hero Games, one of developer Game Science’s biggest external investors, which has also partnered through investments with Kuro Games Studio, the creators of Wuthering Waves. It was shared on Bluesky over the weekend by French journalist Benoit Reinier and subsequently picked up by Forbes and VideoGames SI. IGN has now also confirmed it, citing an anonymous source. I’ve reached out to Game Science for comment on the matter, but have not received a response.
The email lists various “do’s and don’ts” for people streaming Black Myth: Wukong or creating other types of content. Under “do’s” we just find “Enjoy the game!” Under “don’ts” we find the following:
• DO NOT insult other influencers or players.
• DO NOT use offensive language/humor.
• NO politics, violence, nudity, feminist propaganda, fetishization or other content that incites negative discourse.
• DO NOT use trigger words such as “quarantine,” “isolation,” or “COVID-19.”
• DO NOT discuss content related to Chinese game industry politics, opinions, news, etc.
The cautionary tale about “feminist propaganda” is a reminder that Game Science has yet to respond to allegations of widespread sexist behavior from November last year. In a detailed report for IGN, Rebekah Valentine and Khee Hoon Chan described “a studio plagued by accusations of sexism,” linking this to misogyny in other parts of the Chinese games industry and on the government-protected Chinese internet. The developers have pulled up the drawbridge in response: when Edders attended a preview event earlier this year, they refused to say anything on the subject in advance.
The call not to focus on Covid also seems to reflect the Chinese government’s previous practice of censoring discussions about the disease and preventive measures.
I know little about the inner workings of Chinese game publishers or the Chinese gaming community, but yesterday Lu-Hai Liang published an interesting editorial for Nikkei examining the importance of Black Myth: Wukong to the regional games industry and Chinese gamers. It’s a prestigious “triple-A” release from a country that, in Liang’s analysis, has no track record of “premium” single-player offerings due to government regulation of consoles and is associated abroad with free-to-play gacha mechanics like those of Genshin Impact – not to mention Sinophobic reactions to the international investments of Chinese publishers like Tencent.
In Liang’s view, Wukong’s obvious quality and global popularity have made it attractive to Chinese nationalists, and this has at times led to chauvinistic attacks on the game’s critics – particularly after IGN’s report on sexism at Game Science. “Online reactions are pointed, and the attachment Chinese players feel to Black Myth: Wukong can translate into national pride,” Liang writes.
I’ll let you know if I hear back from the developers. In the meantime, Hero Games just announced CrisisX, the story of a devastating infestation in a quiet US coastal town. It’ll be at Gamescom this week – I wonder if they’ll ask booth visitors not to mention quarantines in their coverage.
In a press release about CrisisX, Hero Games’ CEO Daniel Wu also describes the company’s ambition to expand its publishing activities to Western markets. “We are heavily invested in global markets and want to take Hero Games to the next level with CrisisX,” he wrote. “We believe now is the right time to introduce ourselves and our products to a wider audience.”
