Black Myth: Wukong to Launch with Path Tracing on PC

Back in 2020, Chinese developer Game Science posted a 13-minute pre-alpha gameplay video of Black Myth: Wukong. Racking up millions of views within a single day, the project has been on people’s minds ever since, and in 2021, the studio dropped an updated trailer along with the news that the game had been moved to Unreal Engine 5.

Five months before the title’s planned release on August 20, Nvidia has announced that Black Myth: Wukong will be released with both path tracing and DLSS 3.5 support.

“To take Black Myth: Wukong to the next level, developer Game Science is upgrading the game with Full Ray Tracing, which will be enhanced by NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction on GeForce RTX PCs, giving GeForce gamers the definitive experience in this eagerly anticipated game,” the new blog post reads.

“Enabling Full Ray Tracing in Black Myth: Wukong sees environmental effects and detail taken to the next level. Reflections on water reflect all surrounding detail. Water caustics add further realism, accurately rendering the refraction and reflection of light. Fully ray-traced Global Illumination ensures lighting indoors and outdoors is pixel perfect, darkening areas where light is occluded or doesn’t reach, and realistically illuminating the world by bouncing light,” it continues.

A new trailer was also released alongside the exciting announcement.

The game will tell the story of a monkey based on Sun Wukong, known as “the destined one.”

“In concert with the lighting system, contact hardening and softening fully ray traced shadows are cast everywhere, rendering the smallest of shadows from leaves and pebbles, and those from geometry-rich buildings, the main character, and the gigantic bosses that must be overcome,” the post concludes.

Most impressive is the game’s inclusion of Ray Reconstruction, which is, at the time of writing, only available in two titles: Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2.

Black Myth: Wukong is set to release on August 20, 2024 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.