Following its launch earlier this week, Black Myth: Wukong has become one of the biggest games of the year on Steam.
After a couple of months with hardly any big titles, it seems Black Myth: Wukong has officially ended 2024’s summer gaming drought.
Developed by studio Game Science, the action role-playing game is inspired by the Chinese novel Journey To The West and sees you fight a string of bosses as an anthropomorphic monkey known as the Destined One.
Since it launched on August 20 on PC and PlayStation 5, Black Myth: Wukong has surpassed Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 to become the most played single-player title by peak concurrent users on Steam.
At the time of writing (via SteamDB), it is also the second most played game on Steam ever, with an all-time concurrent peak of 2.4 million players, ahead of Palworld (2.1 million) and Counter-Strike 2 (1.8 million).
PUBG: Battlegrounds holds the number one spot with 3.2 million, but considering that’s a multiplayer battle royale title, Black Myth: Wukong’s numbers are particularly impressive.
According to Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad, Black Myth: Wukong also became the most-watched game on Chinese streaming platforms Huya, DouYu, and Bilibili on its release day, hitting 29 million viewers in total. This broke the overall viewing record for a single-player game on Chinese streaming platforms, which was previously held by Cyberpunk 2077.
NEW: Black Myth Wukong was the #1 most viewed game on Chinese game live streaming platforms on its first day, breaking all records for a single player game.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) August 21, 2024
Please read our full blog post on the success of the game and what it means for the industry.https://t.co/MXAUOyI4sB pic.twitter.com/CI6eWKyhaT
Ahmad believes the game’s success marks a ‘significant shift’ in the gaming landscape, as it shows ‘Chinese studios are ready to compete directly with established western and Japanese developers in the premium AAA space’.
Chinese studio Game Science created mobile games before they began development on Black Myth: Wukong, the studio’s first AAA game, in 2017. Tencent later acquired a 5% minority stake in the studio, which was originally founded by former Tencent employees.
As reported by Bloomberg, demand for Black Myth: Wukong saw PlayStation 5 sales double in China when compared to the same period last year. The Chinese gaming market is typically dominated by mobile titles, so this bump in console sales is particularly significant.
While the success of Black Myth: Wukong is mostly driven by its popularity in China, it appears to be doing well elsewhere too. At the time of writing, it’s the most viewed game on Twitch (which is not available in China) with over 234,000 viewers.
It remains to be seen whether it will maintain this popularity in the coming weeks, but it’s certainly left a mark in terms of launch numbers.
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