We have interesting and curious news regarding Game Science’s recently released Steam title, Black Myth Wukong.
Forbes reported on the game’s delay on Xbox, but then received a response from Microsoft. Microsoft’s statement says this:
“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.
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.”
Experiencing some déjà vu? That’s because Microsoft made the same statement to Windows Central around two months ago. The newer response does not have any new information, and is the same statement word for word.
Developer Game Science has gone on record that they are “optimizing the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards.” For our part, we also reported on rumors that Game Science secretly made an exclusivity deal with PlayStation. This rumor was allegedly coming from Microsoft people, talking off the record.
Since Black Myth Wukong launched earlier this week, it has broken Steam concurrent player records, and also received ‘strong’ metascores. We reported on its Metacritic of 82, which has since dropped to 81.
That’s definitely a strong score, but does that make it GOTY worthy, which was the rumor going around before release? We think if Black Myth Wukong was directly positioned against the clear frontrunner so far, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, there is no question on who is winning that award.
There are quite a few other 2024 games still coming up that could be serious contenders to the crown, such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, or Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. While it’s clear that Game Science made an above average title, if we apply the same standard to it as would be applied for other games, we can charitably say that it will get a lot of nominations at best.
In any case, as we had alluded to before, if Game Science did make a PlayStation exclusivity deal under the table, it is unlikely that they or Sony will ever publicly admit it. Short of other whistleblowers emerging to confirm this separately, we will only have Microsoft’s word to take that this is true.
This could lead to an interesting parallel between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S next year. As was recently confirmed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to PlayStation 5 after all, in the first half of 2025. Will we see Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Black Myth Wukong releasing on the rival platforms at around the same time? Will a game patronized by the clearly prodigious Chinese gaming community match up against a giant licensed AAA with global crossover appeal? That’s something new to look forward to this 2025.
