Chinese developer Game Science Studio revealed their current project, called Black Myth: Wu Kong, with a 13-minute gameplay trailer. The game focuses on the popular Chinese novel/myth Journey to the West from the 16th century, which has been adapted for games numerous times, including last year's Monkey King: Hero Is Back, Unruly Heroes and Enslaved: odyssey to the West. From the looks of it, game Science Studio is trying their hand at a serious, faithful adaptation of the myth, letting you control Sun Wukong, the Monkey King himself.
Game Science Studio is a developer founded by ex-Tencent employees that has so far focused on F2P titles, their previous title, early access wargame Art of War: Red Tides, is available on Steam. According to industry analyst Daniel Ahmad on Twitter, the team decided in 2017 that the time was right to start developing a "premium" (meaning paid, large-scale) game, due to the success of gaming platforms such as Steam in China.
The video comes with the disclaimer of being pre-alpha footage, but just from the visuals alone, you wouldn't know it. It's built in UE4, which the team taught themselves in the 2 years since starting work on Black Myth, and from the fluid combat animations to the misty forest and lighting effects, the overall effect is striking. Monkey takes on his opponents by beating them with his staff, using it to deflect projectiles, using what looks like several special attacks, and transforming into a giant beast to deal with large groups—apparently these are just some of a total of 72 abilities.
While it doesn't necessarily look as difficult as Sekiro in the video, perhaps because the person playing it is very good, the influence of FromSoftware's game is unmistakable. God of War and Monster Hunter: World also provided inspiration for the project.
