(Image: https://burf.co/about.php)It’s clear that Game Science is very aware of the discourse around its game; it’s just actively choosing not to say anything. That isn’t really a problem in itself – while it’s a clear effort to wait the allegations out and hope they’re simply forgotten, I can understand a smaller studio choosing to just shut up and let the game speak for itself instead of creating a politicised firestorm around a decidedly unpolitical game with a statement. It’s not great optics-wise, but there’s logic behind
The implication of all these monologues, perhaps, is that players of Black Myth: Wukong can't just beat this games by defeating enemies in boss fights; they'll need to be able to defeat them ideologically as well, demonstrating how reaching enlightenment and becoming a better, happier person is hard, yet possi
Let's start off with TheGamer's review first , which comes from our lovely news editor Joshua Robertson. Josh gave Black Myth a 4/5 and called it a “beautiful, entertaining, and polished soulslike” that is slightly let down by some frustrating level design. That positive sentiment was shared by IGN's Mitchell Saltzman , who gave the game an 8/10 and praised its combat while critiquing how buggy it
And yet, controversy has swirled around the rather inoffensive title since long before its launch. The resurgence of the Gamergate movement has partly been fuelled by bizarre conspiracy theories linking coverage of developer Game Science’s unsavoury history to a ‘DEI extortion ring’. The theory goes that a consultancy firm named Sweet Baby Inc. tried to blackmail Game Science for $7 million in ‘guidance fees’ , and when the developer refused to pay up, games media coordinated a campaign to attack the studio. Because, you know, journalists are corrupt and all t
The newest trailer for the Chinese fantasy action game Black Myth: Wukong , released by the Game Science studio around August 19th, shows viewers gameplay footage and new cutscenes with the title's monkey protagonist, a shape-shifting, staff wielding simian who may or may not be Sun Wukong, the folkloric Monkey King. The English translations of the Chinese captions for the Black Myth: Wukong trailer ** reveal several interesting details about the game's upcoming plot; the untranslated captions reveal even more secrets related to the enemies, allies, and clashing ideologies players will encoun The common thread between the villainous narrators in the latest trailer for Black Myth: Wukong seems to be a hostile cynicism towards Buddhist teachings - a skepticism towards whether achieving enlightenment is even possible, and a belief that those who claim to pursue such as goal are hypocrites trying to conceal their vices from the world. Indeed, the two un-translated narrators in the Black Myth: Wukong trailer articulate this cynicism further, asking the game's protagonist (and player) if they're truly able to overcome destiny and break free from the snares of des Near the end of the Black Myth: Wukong trailer , a different narrator talks about personally listening to the Buddha preach about how desire and lust are the root of all suffering. This narrator then goes on to passionately disagree with this view, chanting a twisted set of religious commandments and advice that invert traditional Buddhist values (and the values of most other religions), making statements such as “Thou Shalt Kill,” “Thou Shalt Steal,” and “Thou Shalt Commit Adultery.” Villainous monologue aside, this narrator seemingly believes a world without desires and illusions would be a world devoid of hope and happiness, a philosophy blending hedonism with nihilism in equal measure. In short, the sort of religion demons might find validat Oddly enough, the localization into English has been done with mixed results. On one hand, the voice work is surprisingly good, even though there’s no lip-syncing. That we can forgive, but there are huge chunks of the game, at least pre-launch, where full journal entries and even button prompts in the world that weren’t translated. Obviously, since this is text, these can be patched in, but these are issues we noticed. This strange spirit seems to be an acerbic ally to the player character, but their thoughts about Buddhist and Daoist practices echo the cynicism of Black Myth Wukong DLC Myth: Wukong's antagonists . Specifically, the spirit seems to believe that the ideals of Buddhism and Daoism are too difficult to achieve - or, at the very least, too impractical for the majority of people in the world to perfectly uphold (though their willingness to conduct divinations using “Bagua” symbolism implies they are affiliated with Daoist spirituality in some w With this document, the studio has sabotaged its own strategy. Staying silent provided plausible deniability – it doesn’t have to deny misogyny or sexism if it’s not making statements at all. But the phrase “feminist propaganda” makes that plausible deniability moot by declaring exactly what Game Science – or, at least, Hero Games – thinks about the criticism leveled against it, though it’s hard to imagine Hero Games came up with these guidelines on its own. Even with so much positive hype coming out about the game, Game Science has still managed to give players pa