"Black Myth: Wukong" is a big, action-packed take on "Journey to the West," but it could have been even more bombastic. Unfortunately, game devs' ambitions don't always mesh with the limits of modern technology.
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00:00Black Myth Wukong is a big, action-packed take on Journey to the West, but it could
00:05have been even more bombastic.
00:07Unfortunately, game devs' ambitions don't always mesh with the limits of modern technology.
00:11Dead or alive, all suffer the same.
00:15GameScience has blown everyone away with Black Myth Wukong, the studio's very first AAA title.
00:21However, fans have learned since launch that the developers originally had even grander
00:25plans for the game.
00:26Thanks to an interview between SouthCN.com and the game's production team.
00:31Thanks to a translation from Reddit user ExaminationAsleep122, we now know that GameScience had some unbelievably
00:37ambitious plans for Black Myth Wukong, and many of the studio's initial ideas were dropped
00:42from the final product.
00:44The first draft included 13 planned levels and a whole array of bosses and set pieces
00:49that only live in our imaginations now.
00:51We're hoping GameScience finds the time to add on to Black Myth Wukong in future DLCs,
00:56because some of the deleted sequences discussed by their production team sound like things
01:00that players absolutely need to experience firsthand.
01:03Though you may savor it yourself, you can never tell if you truly want it or not."
01:10Believe it or not, the very first scene of Black Myth Wukong was originally going to
01:13be very different.
01:15The story was supposed to open with an epic battle between Sun Wukong and 100,000 celestial
01:20soldiers.
01:21The devs meticulously crafted the heroes' various overpowered attacks, but they were
01:25worried that letting players effortlessly destroy thousands of enemies would be more
01:29tedious than fun.
01:31The devs ultimately never got that far, as technical constraints prevented the scene
01:35from becoming a reality.
01:37Even when the devs were only using 150 enemies to represent the Heavenly Army, the game struggled
01:42to run properly on PC.
01:44GameScience decided to change its plan, but the opening of Black Myth Wukong still includes
01:49a standoff between Sun Wukong and Heavenly Forces.
01:52Of course, not the actual battle is a one-on-one fight between Sun Wukong and Erlong Shen,
01:57the army's commander.
01:58How about you bend the knees, admit the wrongs, and we can put this behind us?"
02:07The full Celestial Army and a number of deities now act as imposing background props, but
02:11that prologue scene still makes for a striking introduction to the world and gameplay of
02:16Black Myth Wukong.
02:17"...and they send you and those knuckleheads to threaten me?
02:24To obey and serve once more?"
02:26Some of the other early ideas that GameScience had for Black Myth Wukong weren't quite as
02:31easy to downsize and fit into the final game.
02:33The ability to transform into different animals is a big part of Sun Wukong's story in Journey
02:38to the West, and transformations also feature pretty heavily in the game.
02:43Multiple transformations can be used as combat abilities, and the Destined One's various
02:47animal shapes also lead to some of the coolest exploration segments in the game.
02:52The wildest idea GameScience had for a transformation segment, however, turned out to be too unwieldy
02:57of a technical challenge.
02:59GameScience originally conceived of a spider-themed level, in which the Destined One would have
03:04to take on an arachnid form and infiltrate a booming colony of eight-legged enemies.
03:09The Destined One would have crawled along thin lines of spider silk, moving through
03:12hundreds of these creepy, crawly creatures.
03:15The devs treated the other spiders as particle effects, but quickly found their GPUs and
03:20CPUs overwhelmed.
03:21On top of that, the spider silk turned out to be rather difficult to see, and the stealth
03:26mechanics didn't quite gel with the rest of the game's action-focused gameplay.
03:30The scene might have looked beautiful, but the devs were frustrated as both programmers
03:34and gamers, so the decision was made to cut it.
03:37At the halfway point of Black Myth Wukong, players get a look at one of the most spectacular
03:41settings the game has to offer.
03:43Chapter 3 finds the Destined One exploring the Pagoda Realm, which contains snowy mountain
03:48peaks and a giant, spooky prison.
03:50After hours of adventuring, players eventually find themselves squaring off against Kang
03:54Jin-Star on the back of a giant turtle that's swimming across the sea.
03:58He kept you alive beneath the pagoda, for your own good."
04:02The turtle scene, sadly, is much cooler in concept than in its execution.
04:06The movement through the water has no effect on the boss fight itself.
04:10In fact, it's impossible to tell the turtle is moving at all, outside of cutscenes.
04:14It wasn't supposed to be that way, though.
04:16GameScience originally planned for Turtle Island to be a much bigger experience.
04:21Players would have been able to explore multiple levels of the island, including an underwater
04:25section.
04:26The turtle's movement through Bitter Lake would have resulted in environmental effects
04:30that would have required players to pay attention.
04:32Like the other deleted content, this particular section was held back by technical issues.
04:37The team struggled to get all the environmental effects to work together.
04:40There were also numerous problems with positioning the camera as players explored the area.
04:45Considering the occasional camera problems that already exist in Black Myth Wukong, it's
04:49probably for the best that GameScience trimmed this scene down.