Black Myth: Wukong launched yesterday and immediately broke Steam records, peaking at over 2.2 million concurrent players: the highest ever recorded for a single-player game on the platform. For context, that figure beats Elden Ring’s concurrent peak by roughly four times.
The achievement is significant for multiple reasons. Black Myth: Wukong is the first major AAA title from a Chinese developer to achieve mainstream global success at this scale. Game Science, founded in 2014, had one previous release: a mobile game. The jump from that to a technically polished action RPG built in Unreal Engine 5, featuring one of the most visually impressive environments seen in the medium, is considerable.
The game is based on the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West and follows the Destined One, a monkey-king figure, through mythological environments drawn from the source material. The combat system is demanding but less systemic than FromSoftware comparisons suggest: it is closer to an action game with RPG depth than a Soulslike.
Early reviews have been strongly positive, though a few critics noted inconsistent pacing in the second half. Technical performance has been flagged as demanding: maxing settings on anything below a 5080 at 4K without upscaling is currently not achievable.
The PS5 version was initially planned as a day-one release but was delayed. A confirmed release date has not been given at time of writing.
The numbers are the story today. 2.2 million concurrent players for a single-player game, from a debut AAA developer, built on Chinese cultural source material for a global audience. Whatever comes next from Game Science, they have earned the industry’s full attention.
