The first time we saw a trailer of Black Myth: Wukong I joked that it looked great and would probably never actually come out. That was August 20, 2020. Exactly four years later the fantasy action game isn’t just available to play, it’s shattering records on Steam for single-player and online games alike.
The adventure inspired by China’s Journey to the West novel shot up the charts of Valve’s PC gaming storefront overnight and has become the top-selling and most-played game within its first 12 hours out in the wild. Black Myth: Wukong has already hit over 2.2 million concurrent players on Steam, putting it ahead of every other game that’s ever released on the platform outside of PUBG, the 2017 battle royale sensation that peaked at over 3.25 million players near the end of that year.
Black Myth leap-frogged records set by other single-player games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring, which occupy the seventh and eight spots on Steam’s all-time peak concurrent chart. That was impressive enough for Game Science, a studio founded by ex-Tencent staff who in the past had primarily worked on mobile games. But Black Myth has also topped every other Steam online sensation of the last few years, including Lost Ark and Palworld, as well as Valve’s own multiplayer hits Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2.
That overwhelming day-one audience appears to be mostly overseas so far, with Simon Carless of the Game Discover newsletter estimating almost 90 percent of Black Myth’s current players on Steam are from China, followed by 3 percent from the U.S. and 1 percent from Japan. “Probably, China accounts for 80+% of players where with a large game with localization in the region will account for maybe 25-40%m” tweeted Michael Douise, head of publishing at Baldur’s Gate 3 maker Larian Studios. “It’s a testament what the region can do to shatter numbers when properly mobilized both regionally and internationally in one big launch.”
Is Black Myth: Wukong coming to Game Pass?
We also still don’t know the breakdown of player numbers on PlayStation 5, where Black Myth is a temporary console exclusive after the Xbox version was delayed. The Microsoft miss echoes last year’s giant Baldur’s Gate 3 launch where a version wasn’t ready for the Game Pass platform until December. Why the wait this time? “We are currently optimizing the Xbox Series X/S version to meet our quality standards, so it won’t release simultaneously with the other platforms,” Game Science wrote earlier this year. “We apologize for the delay and aim to minimize the wait for Xbox users. We will announce the release date as soon as it meets our quality standards.”
Some players speculated that was due to a surprise exclusivity deal with Sony, but it seems like the Xbox version, which has to have feature parity on both Xbox Series X and the weaker S, just wasn’t ready. “We’re excited for the launch of Black Myth: Wukong on Xbox Series X/S and are working with Game Science to bring the game to our platforms,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Windows Central in June. “We can’t comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders, but we remain focused on making Xbox the best platform for gamers, and great games are at the center of that.”
Given the blockbuster launch thus far, it seems unlikely Black Myth: Wukong will be a surprise Game Pass release once it finally hits Xbox unless Microsoft is willing to shell out some series money. Usually those deals get locked in to help developers and publishers hedge risk prior to release, or to get extra revenue on during the longtail once a game has already been out for a while. Baldur’s Gate 3 hasn’t come to Game Pass yet either, and studio head Swen Vincke previously said it probably never would.
