The Mythical Origins of Black Myth: Wukong
Jun. 8, 2024The Mythical Origins of Black Myth: Wukong
In this article, I want to talk about why I’m so excited to playBlack Myth: Wukong, and more specifically why its lore is one of its most appealing points, having played the game myself and with a good understanding of what we are getting.Black Myth: Wukongis based on the novel Journey to the West, one of the four great novels in classical Chinese literature.
Before we go further I’d like to thank the team for Black Myth for sponsoring this video as we’ve been covering this game regardless and I’m truly excited, so appreciate the support.
Black Myth: Wukong is a highly anticipated action RPG that many are taking as a soulslike. The game is directly inspired by the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West” written by Wu Cheng’en in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty. Even if you have little knowledge of any Asian culture, you are probably somewhat familiar with the story as the mythology ofSun Wukong, the Monkey King, is one of the most influential characters in Chinese literary history and it has seeped into media everywhere, from anime to TV shows to other games. To put it into perspective, you could say that Wukong is the Frodo of eastern literature, except probably even more influential than Lord of the Rings as this is a story that has thrived in popularity for over four hundred years.
We have done a preview in the past going over the gameplay and everything we know about the upcoming title as well, so if that interests you be sure to check it out. However, for this article, I want to shift your focus and give you a deeper analysis on what we’ve seen so far in the trailers, and how exactly Black Myth: Wukong fits into the classic tale. So without further ado, let’s get started!
Since many of you are probably unfamiliar with this tale, let’s go over a very brief summary of the Journey to the West and who the mythical Sun Wukong is. The story begins with a magical rock imbued with the essence of earth and heaven, a balance of yin and yang. After a thousand years, the stone cracked and gave birth to a fully grown Monkey. This monkey went on to join a group of monkeys, and rises among their ranks to become their king by proving his bravery in finding their home. As it happens to all who have accomplished much and feel they have a lot to lose, the Monkey became fearful of death, and thus departed on a journey to seek the secrets of immortality.
His travels lead him to become the disciple of an immortal sage Puti Zushi, and it’s here that he is finally given the name Sun Wukong, literally meaning “Monkey awakened from emptiness”. With training, he develops magical abilities such as transforming into a possibly infinite amount of creatures, creating clones of himself by pulling his hair, or his Cloud Somersault, all of which we can actually see being used in the trailers. I know you’re already thinking of about 10 animes that are starting to sound familiar, but hold on a little longer for that!
As Wukong grows more powerful, he also grows more arrogant, becoming prideful and abandoning his masters teachings. You would think this would signal an imminent downturn to his fortunes, but instead he convinces the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea to win himself an absolutely broken magical staff that can change its size, multiply, and fight according to his will. If you have watched the trailers, you may have spotted that we can actually see him putting the weapon in his ear in the gameplay when he shows his staff, which is just one of hundreds of little details that make the immense lore of this game.
Having learned mighty magics and obtained a divine weapon, Wukong finds himself still incredibly dissatisfied as he was probably one of the strongest beings in existence yet felt like a divine outcast as he didn’t have a place in heaven. The heavens, in their structured wisdom, attempt to appease Wukong by giving him a low ranking position as a literal stable boy, which made him feel very insulted. Demonstrating that people are people no matter the century, Wukong complains until he gets a new position to guard over the immortality peach garden.
However, heaven underestimated the Monkey King, as he greedily ate their godly ambrosia, finally gaining his desired immortality and adding unexpectedly immense power. Enamoured with his own legends, and now truly over 9000, he goes on to wage war with heaven, annihilating 100,000 celestial warriors, defeating all 28 mythical constellations, beating up the Four Heavenly Kings, and even taking down a few gods! The scale of these actions is on another level, and when you look at the trailers you can see some of these confrontations depicted in amazing detail, which is why its so important to get an idea of the mind-boggling scale of the universe behind this game.
My personal take on why the story of Wukong has been so successful throughout history is what happens next. We have this story of work and determination, dreams and fulfilment. However, Sun Wukong’s existence and previous actions has greatly challenged the current order of Heaven. And Sun Wukong felt greatly disrespected by Heaven, and is unstoppable during his assault of Heaven. Then, in a twist akin to the Elves showing up to defend Helms Deep, the unthinkable happens and The Buddha, the one entity of peace and understanding, has had enough.
Wukong’s rebellion is put to a very definitive end by the Buddha himself, who quite literally dropped a mountain on his head and imprisoned him for 500 years. This gives Sun Wukong plenty of time to reflect on his actions and digest that very needed dose of humble pie. This brings about his realization that true power may lay in enlightenment and not brute force.
As a condition for his release, he offers to act as the bodyguard of the monk Tang Sanzang, along with other sinners, aiming to retrieve sutras and go on the path of enlightenment, in a Journey to the West. From here the tale becomes episodic, recounting the tales of Sun Wukong and the squad protecting Tang from various demons and monsters, called Yaoguais.
I know that sounds like the longest plot ever, but that is honestly a very brief summary of Sun Wukong’s journey, and it doesn’t even cover the actual journey he undertakes with Tang Sanzang. However, there is a reason I didn’t go into that; there seems to be some kind of different path taken by Black Myth: Wukong which partially changes this part into their own original story. Now that we know the context, let’s dive into that.
To start, let’s go over the intro premise of the game, and the characters. This mysterious monkey-looking person describes the tale of Wukong, but doubts whether he really completed his journey to buddhahood, lived to tell the tale, or was even a real monkey. This is already a pointer that the story is taking place after the journey of Sun Wukong . However, the playable monkey character doesn’t seem to be the Wukong at the end of the story, as he doesnt have his iconic golden armour.
We get the confirmation once we see the real Sun Wukong with his signature “Ruyi Jingu Bang” staff and golden armour stop the player from finishing off the Yaoguai boss. So with 3 different monkeys, this raises the question; who is this playable monkey? One theory is that you play as the Six Eared Macaque, also known as the Fake Sun Wukong. This character attempted to take Buddhahood for himself when Sun Wukong went on his Journey to the West, but ultimately died by his hand. However, this theory has a few flaws, as the Six Eared Macaque is, well dead, and had a very explicit, evil goal which we can’t really see being expressed by our main character, known as “the Destined One”. Other theories suggest that he’s a rogue clone from Wukongs hair cloning, or he’s the leftover empty shell of a body after Sun Wukong achieved Buddhahood. It’s impossible to really know exactly who this monkey is, so it’s anyone’s guess.
However, there is other gameplay not focused on this monkey, and we do see that we recount events from the original book despite the story being set in the future. We see the player controlling the real Sun Wukong to chase a Dragon on his signature Cloud Somersault (hi Goku!). In the book, this dragon is probably Bai Long Ma, one of the sinners that go with Wukong in his quest for enlightenment. What’s interesting is that we also see the Destined One fighting him in a different scene. This leads me to believe that we are experiencing two different timelines; a historical timeline in which we play as Sun Wukong, and some alternate timeline where we play as this unnamed monkey following Sun Wukong’s footsteps.
We can see this again when we witness the battle against heaven scene, where the real Sun Wukong fights the celestial army in a playable scene. So it’s possible that we will be bouncing between playing through history, and playing the current timeline, kind of like Sekiro’s Hirata Estate. Another strange aspect of this history is that we never see Sun Wukong with his signature Crown of the Monkey King, an item which was used by Tang Sangzang to apprehend him when necessary. So either this Wukong has already completed his journey, or he hasn’t started it yet.
Moving back to the possible alternate timeline, what would it entail? I think it has something to do with the title, Black Myth: Wukong, which implies a dark, fictional tale of Wukong. It’s a big mystery that Game Science are keeping under wraps for now, but we can definitely confirm that this won’t be a 1 to 1 retelling of the classic story, but instead a new tale that can still offer some mystery for Journey to the West fans.
To set a better timeline to the story, let’s go over the setting in which we see gameplay trailers in. We see our likely fake wukong snooping around the slopes of a mountain named “Black Wind Mountain”, home of the Black Wind Demon (Yaoguai). Legend has it that once upon a time, this mountain was home to the Guanyin Monastery, and corrupt monks set fire to the Monastery to steal Monk Tang Sanzang’s precious cassock, a buddhist clothing. In the chaos, a demon known as the Black Wind Demon stole it, and took it back to his lair. Wukong confronted the demon, and instead of killing him, turned him to the path of redemption with the help of Guanyin, a buddhist deity who offers the demon a chance at redemption, which leads to him becoming the spirit guardian of the mountain.
But what does this mean in reference to the game’s setting? From the tiny old man’s exposition in Chinese, we can roughly translate that he is lamenting the great fire of Guanyin Monastery as if it was quite some time ago, again implying that the game takes place long after the tale. However, this should mean that the temple is protected by the redeemed Black Wind Beast, yet we see several bandits scouring the temple. Later the old man states that they are led by “Lingxu”, a very weak demon who should have been killed by Sun Wukong in the book. This wolf demon is a friend of the Black Wind Beast, and is protected from death by Sun Wukong in the trailer for some unknown reason.
The goals of the bandit tribe and the fake Wukong aren’t exactly clear, but I personally believe that this is another hint towards the alternate timeline theory. Wukong is shown without his signature crown, the demon he killed is alive, and the monastery is overrun by bandits despite supposedly being under protection of the redeemed Black Wind Beast. So far, none of the consequences from Wukongs journey have actually happened in this reality.
Additionally, in another trailer we also see the Tiger Vanguard, the subordinate of the Yellow Wind Demon. You can probably see where I’m going with this; this character was yet another super weak adversary that was killed by one of the squad members in the quest for sutras. Now, he’s alive and chilling in a pool of blood, waiting for the mysterious monkey as a boss fight. All of this points to the fact that this Wukong hasn’t gone on his journey of redemption and redeemed/killed the adversaries he was supposed to. The Black Wind Demon and Yellow Wind Demon are likely still out there, unpunished and unredeemed, and we can probably imply this for the rest of the demons in the journey like the Spider Demons.
This falls in line with the fact that we do see the battle in heaven, the last large plot point before Sun Wukong is imprisoned and goes on his redemption story. He caused chaos in heaven, then must have somehow got out of his journey and the 500 year imprisonment. So now, he’s making amends to that, traveling along with this “Destined Monkey” in his path to redemption.
So that wraps up my thoughts on the game’s story and where I believe it’s going. I love ancient myth and stories, and have been lucky enough to visit the Ming Dynasty tombs in China, but I am by no means an expert in any Chinese Legend, so feel free to correct me or debunk these theories in the comments if you have any ideas or insights.
I love to see all the effort Game Science has put into adding every tiny detail they could to their upcoming title, from the many magics that we will learn to the truly outstanding character and enemy design. The art direction alone has me looking forward for this, and that’s not even considering how much fun I had with the gameplay.
A lot of exposure to this story around the world comes from other Asian interpretations of the story, particularly via anime, manga or some popular movies. It’s only now, as Chinese studios are making worldwide waves, that we get to truly see the full impact of the cultural legacy of these internalized stories represented faithfully on media. This is very clearly a passion project of some very inspired developers, and I think it’s great that people like me are being exposed to this really interesting story, so I hope everyone in our community can take a minute to check it out and discover something new.
There’s also a Mythology Contest currently ongoing where you can submit a lore video, as well as a social media Sweepstakes Contest for a chance to get the prize of an RTX 4070 Super Graphics Card, Custom controllers, official Merch etc.
Destined Ones, Confront your destiny on the journey westward now!Check out Black Myth: Wukong here!
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
