A new Black Myth: Wukong 12-minute gameplay test video dropped and is no less impressive than the first announcement trailer. The footage captured is Black Myth running on Unreal Engine 5 and at 4K/60 FPS with Nvidia’s ray-tracing and DLSS tech.
The new gameplay test video takes place in an entirely different location than the first video. Sun Wukong traverses over a snowy landscape instead of a forested area, leading to interesting battle effects and pretty great snow physics. When a monster throws an attack and it cuts through the snow, the visual impact of the blow is *chef’s kiss*. The boss fight at timestamp 3:30 demonstrates the character model’s interactions with the snowy ground the best.
We also saw more of how Game Science devs will incorporate Wukong’s signature moves in Black Myth. At timestamp 8:49 in the trailer, Wukong’s staff grows larger as he lands the final blow on an enemy dragon–extending his legendary weapon (金箍棒 Golden Staff) to any size is a signature ability in the classical myth. Some of his other special talents in the original tale include shape-shifting, cloning himself into many copies, and of course, zooming around on a golden cloud.
As revealed by analyst Daniel Ahmad, Wukong should end up having 72 abilities in total at the player’s disposal.
Journey to the West has received multiple adaptations through various mediums. See: the 5 million different Journey to the West TV shows, Stephen Chow’s hilarious comedic Journey to the West movie, and rather uniquely, Minekura Kazuya’s Saiyuki–a cowboy-slash-chain-smoking spin on the classical Monkey King tale. An honorable mention includes Dragon Ball Z, which also borrows heavily from the original 16th century story.
And now we have a gritty Dark Souls-inspired (also Sekiro vibes?) AAA game taking on the fantastical Monkey King myth and joining the ranks of adaptations. It’s an unexpected confluence of visual identities, mythologies, and gameplay style, but as far as the released gameplay footage shows–it’s a compelling one.
Black Myth: Wukong doesn’t have a confirmed release date yet. You can check out Black Myth: Wukong’s first trailer for more information on what the game looks like.
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