What makes 'Black Myth: Wukong' game of the year material like Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3?

Black Myth: Wukong has taken the gaming industry by storm, breaking all sorts of records within a day of release. Currently, with an all-time high player count of 2.4 million players on Steam alone, the game is also being dubbed Game of The Year. While some argue otherwise, a vast majority of the voice is in support of the game. Today, we will check out why.

Why is Black Myth: Wukong GOTY material?

Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG game that resembles the souls-like genre very closely, but this isn’t the only thing skyrocketing its success. The game includes various elements from other popular games, these include combat, upgrade, world-building and much more.

Game Science, the developers of Black Myth: Wukong also added elements of Chinese mythology in the game which was very well received in their country. The game is based around Journey To The West, which is also quite popular across the globe.

Paired with the freedom of how you want to do it and fleshed-out combat mechanics, it gives players the same feeling as playing other GOTY titles like Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3. There is a minimal amount of hand-holding and the game lets the gamers play how they want, which seems to be an ingredient for success nowadays.

Modern games aren’t as bad as games, but the tedious amount of things players have to do and are constantly being told what to do. Many players get burned out and do not even know why in most cases. These games do not impose, they will have certain requirements to progress, but it is up to the players to figure out.

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Mods are also supported in Black Myth: Wukong. While not the biggest contributor, as the majority of the players will play the regular game, the modding community also helps in defining a game. Mods can make any game interesting and allow the aforementioned freedom of what they want to do to the next level.

Most recently, a mod came out where players can play as Son Goku from Dragon Ball Z and in time, who knows what kind of mods for the game will emerge. Maybe we will see a boss randomizer or even more playable characters. Currently, various optimizations and visual mods are available for the game.

Controversies regarding Black Myth: Wukong

With a game becoming so popular, there were also some hot takes in the mix. These were created by regular people and the developers themselves, with a set of guidelines that can be considered ‘explosive’ in the modern-day internet. Along with that, there were also 

Xbox delay

Right before the global release, Game Science announce that the Xbox port will see an indefinite delay due to some technical issues. Rumours started rising that the developers have made a contract with Sony, while others claimed the hardware for Xbox isn’t powerful enough to run the game.

However, everything was debunked after a popular leaker ‘eXtas1stv’ revealed that during their talk with Xbox insiders, the actual delay for the game was revealed to be a memory leak in the game which causes crashes. Due to this, the game has not been able to pass Xbox's bug detection tests, although the devs are working to fix it.

Game Science’s streaming guidelines

Before the release, the devs also listed some things that have the internet riled up. A statement asking not to include feminist propaganda or the use of trigger words like quarantine or isolation or COVID-19 was asked to streamers that pointed many fingers. This came between a list of other regular things, and people did not let go of it.

However, regardless of these things, players who have been waiting for the game seem to be enjoying it, and the game sits at over 400,000 reviews with an Overwhelmingly Positive rating. The last two times any games blew up this much were Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 and both won Game of The Year over other behemoths.

With how the pattern is looking, it certainly looks like the players have already found their GOTY. It will also be interesting to see this happen back to back for three years.