Many players were furious after the company behind Black Myth: Wukong sent them a list of topics to avoid while livestreaming the game, including “feminist propaganda, fetishisation, and other content that instigates negative discourse”.
Still, within 24 hours of its release on Tuesday, it became the second most-played game ever on streaming platform Steam, garnering more than 2.1 million concurrent players and selling more than 4.5 million copies.
The game, based on the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, is being seen as a rare example of popular media broadcasting Chinese stories on an international stage.
Black Myth: Wukong is a single-player action game where players take on the role of “the Destined One”- an anthropomorphic monkey with supernatural powers.
The Destined One is based on the character of Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King, a key character in Journey to the West.
That novel, considered one of the greats of Chinese literature, draws heavily from Chinese mythology as well as Confucianism, Taoist and Buddhist folklore.
It has inspired hundreds of international films, TV shows and cartoons, including the popular Japanese anime series Dragon Ball Z and the 2008 Chinese-American fantasy film The Forbidden Kingdom.
Credit: bbc.com
