BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese state media threw its back behind China’s most successful single-player video game to date, saying its adaptation of the Ming dynasty epic “Journey to the West” would force Western players to learn more about the country’s culture. Moreover, Black Myth: Wukong draws from classic Chinese mythology, bringing beloved stories to life. #BlackMythWukong
Black Myth: Wukong features a mythical monkey king who can shape-shift into various forms. This game is based on a Chinese literary classic. A day after its release, 2.2 million players were playing it concurrently on Steam.
“Chinese players in the past have gone through this process of cross-cultural understanding, now it is the turn of overseas players to learn… and understand Chinese traditional culture,” China Central Television wrote in a blog.
Black Myth: Wukong draws heavily on the story of Sun Wukong, the magical monkey. Sun Wukong gains supernatural powers by practicing Taoism. According to the national broadcaster, players need to be familiar with the 16th-century classic’s plot to fully enjoy the game.
The PC/console-based game Black Myth: Wukong launched on Tuesday by Game Science. This Tencent-backed startup received significant attention on Chinese social media. Hashtags related to the game gathered 1.7 billion views on Weibo.
“This release marks a bold foray by Chinese game developers into a market long dominated by Western triple-A titles,” the official Xinhua news agency wrote in an editorial on Wednesday.
“With this breakthrough, the default language of a triple-A game is no longer English, but Chinese,” it added.
“Black Myth: Wukong” would “attract more global players to pay attention to domestic games”, said analysts at Shanghai-based Topsperity Securities, adding that companies across a wide range of sectors could expect to profit off intellectual property tie-ins. #BlackMythWukong
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