While online reviews are already speculating that it's a "Game of the Year" contender, it's definitely the game story of the year already. Black Myth: Wukong, from Chinese developer Game Science, as of this writing, is boasting the most concurrent players for a single-person game in STEAM history – almost 2.5 million – with a quarter million reviews locked on a 10/10 average user review rating.

It's crazy. It's insane. Black Myth: Wukong is breaking records every time we refresh our news feeds. The whole (gaming) world, East and West, is playing this thing right now. After many stalled starts, this game is China officially entering the triple-A, big-time, marquee video game global group chat. And it's making a BIG statement.

We got our copy for the PS5 two days ago and are around 20 hours and one smashed controller into it. Here's what it's like.

From Chinese developer Game Science comes Black Myth: Wukong, a self-admitted "action RPG", that, since its hype cycle started back in 2018, has been shrugging off comparisons to the Soulsborne series, a set of games from Japanese developer FromSoftware known for their elaborate and intense boss fights, staggeringly fantastical environments, and INSANE difficulty level.

Yes. Very much, yes. And…eh… your experience may vary. More on that below.

A Chinese story through and through, Black Myth: Wukong is based on the classic Ming Dynasty novel, Journey to the West. If you've spent any amount of time in China, you've encountered the Monkey King and if you're native Chinese, seeing these characters and stories get this triple-A treatment must be a bit like that scene in The Avengers when the camera circle-pans around all of them at the end. Although the story picks up some time after the events of the novel – the titular character, Sun Wukong, has ended up rejecting the Buddhahood he achieved in the novel, and a new Destined One has set out on the journey to recover his scattered lost relics – every character is from the novel. We're dropping names like Zhu Bajie, Black Bear Guai, Maitreya and Erlang Shen. For Chinese gamers, this is not only like seeing your childhood imagination and national cultural heroes and villains up on the big screen; you get to play with and interact with them as well.

Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, is built to be a video game protagonist. The original novel imbues him with all sorts of powers and abilities, and the game developers have woven these into the gameplay as your collection of fighting skill trees. Your main weapon is the Ruyi Jingu Bang (the magical staff), and with it you unlock abilities and spells that freeze people into place, create duplicates of yourself, and even shape-shift into 72 unique forms – all of that is from the novel.

The story progresses in six chapters, with each having its own fairly contained narrative. The levels are fairly on-the-rails and linear, progressing the player through cannon fodder enemies, lesser bosses, more lesser bosses, even more lesser bosses, and show stopping main event bosses (Yaoguai). There are secret areas, side quests, opportunities to gain experience and level up, and diversions along the way, but basically it's an epic saga reworked as a massive linear boss rush game, and you're fighting them sometimes one right after the other. It's a gauntlet.

And these bosses. My god. There are 90 in total, all with unique character design, move sets, and attack combos, ranging from pushover easy to… well, we've already smashed one controller, and we're only in the middle of Chapter 2.

Damn you, Baw-Li-Guhh-Lang.

The game offers you a wide variety of offensive and defensive staff skills, spells, and transformations to develop, and you strategize which are suited to the combatant you're facing. It's not easy. It's a challenge. Yes, it's a challenge. But not an insurmountable one. If you can handle Ghost of Tsushima, if you can handle God of War, if you can handle Sekiro this is your wheelhouse. Maybe with the difficulty cranked a bit. If you're a button-mashing casual gamer… well… dodge roll is your friend.

For all its frustrating moments, there's so much about Black Myth: Wukong that is amazing. It looks gorgeous. The environments – featuring real locations in Shanxi Province – Little Western Paradise, the Iron Buddha Temple, the Stork Tower, among others – look cinematically incredible. It's exhaustively detailed. It's ambitious. It's innovative. The character design and voice acting are as good as any we've ever seen. It's frenetic. It's exhilarating. It's heart-pounding. And above all, after you've come out the other end of a 40-minute, 90-attempt, mountain smashing boss battle, satisfying.

Black Myth: Wukong is a world-class production, and as a Chinese take on a Chinese story, it's a milestone moment in gaming history. And with holidays coming up, you've got a great opportunity to enjoy it in a traditional way: locking yourself in your apartment, keeping a steady stream of Eleme delivery coming to your door, and doing nothing but blasting 50 straight hours of this on your couch.

Ganbei!

Black Myth: Wukong is available on PlayStation 5 and on PC (Windows). An Xbox Series release has been announced for a later date.