‘Black Myth: Wukong’ Shows China’s Cultural Soft Power Is No Myth

The hottest video game in the world right now is called “Black Myth: Wukong.” Set in the world of the Chinese classic novel “Journey to the West,” players take control of a monkey warrior – the Destined One – on a quest to fulfill an ancient prophecy by exploring fantastical lands, finding lost relics, and fighting demons and monsters. These may sound like common tropes in gaming, and they are, but this time the game does not come from a Japanese or American developer, but from China itself.

The game, released in August 2024, was developed by Game Science Studio located in Shenzhen, China. With a budget reported to be over $50 million, “Black Myth: Wukong” is considered to be a “AAA” title video game. This puts the Chinese game in the peer group of other familiar “AAA” titles in series like “Fallout,” “The Witcher,” or “The Last of Us,” all of which have been adapted into TV shows recently.

So far, “Black Myth: Wukong” is a hit, with well over 2 million players on the Steam gaming platform. Despite mixed reviews from critics, the game has over 200,000 player reviews on Steam and they are "Overwhelmingly Positive,” according to the gaming platform.

What makes the success of “Black Myth: Wukong” notable is that there have been questions about China’s soft power. Despite its economic rise, the nation’s cultural and creative industries have lacked global appeal. Yes, there has been successful public diplomacy through building trains or stadiums. The massive Belt and Road Initiative showed how the nation could lead international efforts through infrastructure. But these endeavors have been criticized as “dollar diplomacy” – simply throwing money around was not real attraction.

Rather than soft power, these big industrial-type projects were more akin to hard power, as they were driven directly from the government and relied on monetary payment. Books like “Charm Offensive” (2007) or “When China Rules the World” (2009) warned about these government-led endeavors, and a recent Foreign Policy article described China’s soft power as a “problem” and “failure.” Viewed from these perspectives, other nations were simply not interested in the cultural products coming from the PRC.

The success of “Black Myth: Wukong” is showing that these takes were short-sighted.

Juxtaposing With Japan and Korea

China has often been juxtaposed negatively with its neighbors in terms of soft power. Japan and South Korea both have successful and beloved cultural exports around the world.

For Japan, its postwar rise was partly predicated on its creative industries such as animation and video games. Japan has long dominated the gaming sector since the early 1980s when Nintendo dazzled the world with games featuring Donkey Kong and Mario.

Even after the boom years ended, cultural fascination with Japan from around the world has remained high through its massive video game and anime industries. International students flock to Japanese universities to study the language of the anime series they are watching. Foreign tourists visit Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood hoping to score cheap retro games they grew up playing.

Japanese developers have even produced successful and globally popular games that told the stories of Chinese history and folklore. Koei, with the popular “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and its spinoffs, tapped into the classic Chinese novel by the same name. “Journey to the West” has already been used by Japanese cultural and creative industries, such as Koei’s “Saiyuki: Journey West” or Bandai Namco’s “Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.” “Dragon Ball,” one of the biggest Japanese anime series globally, draws from this Chinese mythology as well.

With “Black Myth,” though, it is a Chinese developer telling a Chinese story. The game even features historical sites that survive today in China that players can still visit. Social media is buzzing with side-by-side comparisons of the video game versions versus the real locations in China. This kind of cultural heritage hype may juice tourism to China in the coming years, akin to the massive boom in tourism to Japan.

South Korea has been the recent darling in the cultural sector with the Hallyu or Korean Wave amassing fans of K-pop and dramas around the world. The South Korean film “Parasite” won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020, becoming the first non-English film to do so, while the TV show “Squid Game” dominated Netflix charts in 2021, as fans eagerly await the second season.

These cultural wins have been a boon to South Korea’s soft power. Through the Hallyu phenomenon, the government has attempted to harness this organic popularity through global tourism campaigns and cultural research centers. People around the world have now taken an interest in the country and society, including learning the language and becoming a popular study abroad destination.

While the Korean government co-opted its cultural popularity, the origins of Hallyu remained organic. Conversely, the critique of China’s soft power has been the top-down nature, originating from the government – like the much-maligned Confucius Institutes – rather than enjoying natural, organic popularity. The problem was not Chinese culture itself, as old Hong Kong kung fu movies have been hits around the world for decades, but rather the current approach. The PRC has been viewed as too rigid and constrained by the Chinese Communist Party. The lack of freedom hindered creativity that could be attractive around the world.

A New Era for Chinese Soft Power?

Despite the past critiques, “Black Myth: Wukong” illustrates that China can produce soft power resources in these popular cultural and creative industries, even under a stricter system. These constraints were evident with the game’s launch. Livestreamers were given a list of topics that they were not to discuss while playing the game. According to the New York Times, these topics included, “politics, ‘feminist propaganda,’ Covid-19, China’s video game industry policies and other content that ‘instigates negative discourse.’” 

These lists of “don’ts” rankled reviewers and influencers, but the average gamer did not seem to mind, as the game still racked up a record number of players. In fact, there has been a growing rift between gamers and the media sector that covers the industry, erupting with the 2014 Gamergate, and extending into the current discourse.

It seems that the PRC sensibilities of “no politics” align with the sentiments of many young gamers today. These common sentiments seem especially true for young men, who still dominate much of the console gaming market. An example of this disconnect comes from a lukewarm review of the Chinese game from the website ScreenRant, which listed as a con that the game is “lacking in inclusivity and diversity.” Players have largely seemed to ignore this critique, which has also been mocked online.

Gamers are simply happy taking control of a magical monkey flying around a mythologized Tang Dynasty China without connecting to modern political issues or culture wars. Game Science obliged this appetite, which happened to align with the environment in contemporary China where the CCP has a close eye on cultural industries. Gamers are largely comfortable with, and may even prefer, the apolitical sensibilities in which “Black Myth: Wukong” was born.

One day, there will be young people who decide to learn Chinese and go study abroad in Hebei Province because they grew up playing “Black Myth: Wukong.” This is no different than the students learning Japanese because they watched Studio Ghibli films as a kid or going to South Korea because they love BTS. This time, though, it is China creating this cultural soft power boon, when critics long wondered if they ever could given the political environment.

The question now centers on whether Chinese cultural industries can continue this trend or if “Black Myth: Wukong” will be a one-off success. The creators reportedly have plans for an expanded universe of Chinese mythology games. Japanese anime has been globally relevant for decades, and Korean Hallyu has only gotten more acclaim in recent years. If the popularity continues, China will have a new cultural soft power source in video gaming, a massive and growing sector around the world.