The hype for Black Myth: Wukong has been felt globally as the game slowly crawled towards its launch date, and it didn't disappoint when it launched on August 20, having received a very warm welcome from the gaming community at large. After being online for a mere 12 hours, the Journey to the West-inspired RPG garnered a whopping 2,223,179 peak concurrent player count, putting it in second place in Steam Charts and SteamDB, and firmly in first place in Steam's top-selling list.

On its way to the top of Steam's charts, Black Myth: Wukong surpassed heavy-hitting games, Counter-Strike 2, DOTA 2, Palworld, Cyberpunk 2077, and even the highly memed Banana. Unlike much of its competition, Black Myth: Wukong is a single-player game, making this outcome even more impressive. That single-player nature, however, does mean that it likely won't have the staying power of something like PUBG or DOTA 2, which are still going strong at the top of Steam's player charts many years after their initial launches.

It's worth noting that Black Myth: Wukong's launch aligned with the start of Gamescom, which happened to be a random Monday night in the US and the middle of a working Tuesday in China — Steam's two biggest markets by player count. This means the player count may continue to rise closer to the weekend and as reviews are published and read more widely.

Speaking of reviews, Black Myth: Wukong has done rather well in reviews, as well. On Steam, a total of 127,434 players have reviewed the game, giving it an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on the platform. Outside of Steam, publications like Rock Paper Shotgun, Polygon, and IGN have all given the single-player RPG glowing reviews that often praise the combat system, visuals, and its roots in Chinese mythology, which are a break from the oft-explored Norse, Roman, and Greek themes.

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