Black Myth Wukong time, peeps!

Thou shalt Kill, less feuds instill

Thou shalt Steal, as decreed by the freewill

Thou shalt commit adultery, for love thrives in debauchery

Thou shalt speak Untruth, to inspire and seduce

Oh it's that time of year again! Time for the imaginers over at Game Science (we still just calling them that? Nothing else? Okay.) to show just how much we've been missing out on whilst the Chinese side of the gaming world has itself preoccupied with the mobile world. If this is the calibre of product that we could have been receiving on the regular, than I bitterly curse the day Steve Jobs dreamed a computer in his pocket, because the gaming industry has suffered immeasurably for it. Although I suspect that even under alternative circumstances, it takes a special kind of development team to come together, as an Indie, and create fuel a project that looks as good, as consistently, as Black Myth Wukong does. That isn't just your everyday action adventure smash 'em up game, now this has something of a promise to it. And that's the reason that even in this post Cyberpunk world; where the illusion of 'hype culture' has been well and truly cracked upon for all to gawk at, I still get giddy everytime this project darkens my Youtube subscription box.

This video in particular is special, and that's because it's not just a quick stop in to let everyone know the game is very much still in development like last time. Oh no. This trailer serves to announce and show off something which many people could have likely assumed, but it's nice to see it all the same; that Black Myth Wukong will be making its way to the ever fancy new Unreal Engine 5 suite of game engines. Of course it is. This game wowed in terms of scale and graphical fidelity back when it launched, thus it behoves Game Science to stay well and truly ahead of the game Engine wherever possible. (In fact, given some of the logos we see thrown about in this trailer, I wouldn't be surprised if Game Science is currently rocking an unreleased build of UE5 to fiddle around with.) And before you start throwing up the shrugged shoulders and asking yourself why this new engine is worth bragging about; let me give you a few examples why UE5 is a gamechanger.

Firstly, it's important to say that I'm not a game developer. Or at least, not in the sense of heavy coding and certainly not when it comes to familiarity with Unreal Engine, thus I'm not able to wrap my head around every nook and cranny of this new engine. But I have heard all that I can from those that do know what they're talking about a bit more and that gives me a little wiggle room to pull this off methinks. Firstly, Unreal Engine 5 expands greatly on the level of detail which can be contained in a single scene by actual whole orders of magnitude, owning to the way that the engine itself handles loading and deloading textures. Bundles of quality of life features and program bridges allow for development times to be cut in half, and animators have greater freedoms then they ever had before. Or rather they will when the full suite is released, because there's still some elements which UE4 holds over 5. (Although most of the shortcomings can be worked around by porting anyway.) So long story short, Unreal Engine 5 will allow for unnecessary development time to be chaffed off, and for that excess spare time to be funnelled into the increased detail budget available. This is a net positive mood in just about every way.

And it shows. I've watched the trailer a few times now, just thumbing through and actually start to finish, and you can just tell all the ways in which the presentation is upfront and in-your-face for Black Myth. I'm already salivating with those close-up shots of the rocky mountain sides and ancient carved murals that just breath lore and life in their very stones. Some of this level of detail is only possible with the newer engine, and Game Science have shown time and time again that they know exactly how to make these systems sing for them. What hits double points for me, however, is the fact that the majority of this trailer takes place within the snow, and ya'll probably know well my love affair for the colder climates by now. We've only seen clear snow so far, so I can't judge how well they can impart the sense of snow's bitter touch, but they've spared no expense on snow imprints; the shortcut to any gamers heart. Seriously, show a gamer a beach that shows footsteps and you'll have won their undying loyalty and love. Black Myth went so far as to show the shockwave of a move cut a path through the snow. (These guys always got to go the extra step, huh?)

Never has Game Science been excused of leaving gamers wanting with their gameplay presentations, they always make sure to stick as much of everything they can into the margins so that we have plenty to day dream on in the months until the next trailer, but this time in particular it almost seems as though they're trying to overdoes us on content. Wall-to-wall fighting with various show-offs of strategy, monster types and environments, some of which flies by so fast you can only assume their building these walkthroughs specifically to cater to the "10 things you missed" with the yellow circles crowd. Not that I bemoan them, I love the slowly expanding image we're receiving of Game Science's vision, as we gradually close in on exactly what they've been working on all of this time. This time around, for example, we really got a chance to feel the 'answer-response' melee style of your typical souls game combat, feeding into the 'Sekiro' influence the team mentioned all those years past.

Speaking of Sekiro, and the work of FromSoftware in general, would you mind if I geeked out about those enemy designs? Because wow, if you asked me what a Chinese FromSoftware game would look like, I'd be dreaming up something mighty similar to the things we saw in this trailer. From the gangly monkey man to the headless musician and of course, my highlight, the silver Chinese dragon. A lot of these creatures are born from the mythology of Journey to the West as well as Chinese myth in general, that much is clear, but the skill and creativity to take those legends and visualise them in such striking and interesting ways is a testament purely to Game Science's team. And on a personal note, I just die everytime I see the fur textures for this game; that big black red-eyed bear- I just want to reach through the screen and cuddle his little murderous face.

Our Monkey King, Sun Wukong, is shaping up to be quite the protagonist even aside from the wonderous adventure he's going on and the wild monstrosities he's tackling. True to form, the developers have put a lot of work into making his moveset seem nimble and fluid, with the emphasis on stealth from the first trailer and the tricky agility displayed here. One fight in particular showed off a lot of a dodge move designed to be made right in the face of an attack, even to the point where it displays an afterimage of where he would be, which paints this idea of combat being a lot more hair-trigger than your typical Dark Souls. (I wouldn't be surprised if Move cancelling takes a significant presence in this move pool) I'm also excited to see Ruyi Bang get some love here, with the iconic staff-growing being an actual move. (Which reminds me when in Dragon Ball Goku stretched his staff to the Moon in order to dump some bad guys on it) Which leads me to the highlight of the trailer; that scene where Wukong climbs to a perch on Ruyi Bang and then slams it on the Dragon in an explosive finisher move just as the music swells. Was it an artificial moment? A little bit. But was it cool beyond measure? Absolutely!

It may be a bit of a cliché, especially in the wake of certain other games who ruled their pre-marketing cycle through overly impressive trailers, but I'm more than happy to just sit back and wait years until this game is every bit as good as we think it is. I have no problem with checking in every year on what they're doing, seeing everything going to plan and going "Great, see you next year." Because just like someone who's just learning how to love again, I can't have another giant fall on it's face in front of me again. Game Science talk the talk, the appear to walk the walk, now all we have to do is wait and feast on the banquet of beauty these trailer represents. And the offerings are vast. The years may be long, the wait may be torturous, but when the day finally comes for our Journey to the West; it will all be worth it.