Ok, here are my thoughts on Black Myth: Wukong. On a fundamental level, what Game Science have been able to pull off here is extremely impressive. They started developing this game in 2018 when there was only 13 people working on it, and scaled up to 140 people by 2024. For reference, the last game the company had published was Art of War: Red Tides, a mobile game which looked like this: Wukong was extremely ambitious and the end product is pretty much on par with some of the highest praised AAA games from more established studios. Visually stunning: The graphics really are amazing, from the scanned in real world locations / artifacts, to the unique landscapes, to the varied enemy design, the game really brings the Journey to the West story alive in a hyper realistic way. There's also a great sense of scale across the game, that really immerses you in the world. Fluid combat: There's a lot of depth to the combat once you start unlocking skills. The stances, armor and spells / transformations help keep things varied. It's definitely hard to master, especially with how difficult some of the bosses are, and I do think you need to follow a guide if you don't want to be under levelled / die all the time. Great Story: This is definitely a game where you need to be familiar with Journey to the West to understand everything + the references, but ultimately you can play it just fine even if you have no idea what's going on. The animations at the end of each chapter are really great. Overall Gameplay: The game is quite well designed imo, from the various enemy types, to the number of bosses, to the wide linear levels, not to mention the music and sound. I think it has the right level of depth to it and the amount of content on offer very much makes it worth the price alone. Negatives: I played on PS5 where the game clearly hasn't been optimized for the system. As amazing as the world is, there are invisible walls everywhere and some chapters could have had better level design / pacing. One of the complaints I've seen over and over again on the Chinese internet is that the game is too difficult, and not to repeat myself, but you may need to follow a guide to avoid dying all the time. While there are definitely some great QOL aspects when it comes to combat and gameplay in general, I do feel it's lacking some of that polish you see in other AAA games. But on the other hand, it does excel in some areas that I really haven't seen in other games before. Summary: This is genuinely an amazing action RPG, and while there are definitely some issues / annoyances, It's also an extremely impressive AAA title from a developer who has never created a game like this before. I'd give it a solid 8/10 and recommend it. There's also a lot of potential for a sequel that improves on the above and takes the series up to a 10/10. We've definitely seen the Chinese games industry undergo its "Industrialization" period over the past few years, with developers standardizing tools, production processes and increasing efficiency and output. Genshin Impact was proof of this in 2020 and now we're starting to see that extend to the AAA high end space with Wukong. China has long had an advantage when it comes to mobile and F2P game development, so it'll be interesting to see if they can truly give Western and Japanese AAA game devs a run for their money on PC and console. Right now there is still a lack of talent in this space and AAA single player premium games are still inherently viewed as risk by both CN and overseas devs. The path for Game Science is set this point, and Phantom Blade Zero seems to be the next title that could potentially replicate its success. Will be interesting to watch for sure.