For many expecting Game Science to announce its DLC for Black Myth: Wukong at Gamescom Opening Night Live, the announcement of Black Myth: Zhong Kui came as somewhat of surprise. In a new post on Weibo (translation by MP1st), CEO Feng Ji has addressed the shift to a new title, revealing that it resulted from “confusion, emptiness, and a kind of dread.”
It all started when the studio began working on DLC for Wukong, which quickly took a turn. “What I really couldn’t shake during that period was mostly confusion, emptiness, and a kind of dread (I know that sounds melodramatic — don’t shoot me). No matter how ashamed I felt for ‘not being able to be happy,’ those emotions kept coming, uncontrollably and in waves, especially when I felt pulled under by questions like ‘Are you working on a DLC or not? Which characters will be in it? When will it be released?’
“As a professional adult, I’m good at hiding those negative feelings and convincing myself to pull myself together and get on with making the DLC, because I knew clearly that the people asking for a DLC were, without doubt, fans who love Black Myth: Wukong and Game Science, the very people who carried us to where we are.”
However, Feng Ji felt “relieved” when studio co-founder Yang Qi asked if he’d rather make something new instead of working on the DLC, and work started on Zhong Kui. And while it would have been a “solid choice,” the team is leaning more towards making a brand new game.
“New hero, new gameplay, new visuals, new technology, and new story. We want to free our hands, experiment boldly, break from fixed formulas, and start from scratch.”
Black Myth: Zhong Kui is coming to consoles and PC, but it’s a long way off from a release date. By Game Science’s own admission, the action RPG is “little more than an empty folder at this stage” with “hardly any game footage to share.” It’s another single-player title, but even the studio can’t comment on the gameplay and story since “we’re not even done with the outline yet.” Stay tuned for more details because it’s going to be a long wait.