How did a fairly straightforward video game based on an ancient legend become the latest battleground in the war over “woke”?

Black Myth: Wukong takes the ancient legend of Monkey, or the Monkey King, an iconic character whose travels were most famously described in the Ming dynasty masterpiece Journey to the West, and expands on it. The game first attracted interest in 2020, when its makers debuted a 13-minute-long trailer that drew over 10 million views and won wild praise from gamers around the globe. The ensuing four years of anticipation paid off: Within a day of its August 20 release, it had reportedly sold 4.5 million copies and soared to over 2.2 million concurrent players on Steam; it’s currently ranked as the platform’s second most-played game of all time.

This might have been a simple and exciting win for the Chinese gaming industry; Wukong is the country’s first major top-tier game release — not to mention a major exportation of Chinese culture at a mass global scale. But therein lies the problem: Some of the game’s US audiences seem to believe the game itself is Chinese propaganda. It doesn’t help that prior to the game’s release, the game’s co-publisher, Hero Games, attempted to issue a moratorium among reviewers and streamers on certain unsavory topics — including elements that have nothing to do with the game itself, like “feminist propaganda” and Covid-19.

Was this dictum merely a face-saving gesture for the Chinese Communist Party? Was it a sign that the game is actually serving a conservative agenda? Or was it something else altogether? No one is sure; but in the wake of the game’s success, a mix of wariness about China and right-wing embrace has led to a backlash against the game by some on the left. Now, being angry about the game is being seen as tantamount to being angry about the American right.

All this over a game whose only real aim is arguably to have players have fun battles and collect cool pretty things.

In Journey to the West, Monkey, a.k.a. Sun Wukong, is a trickster archetype who becomes immortal but rebels against Buddha. He then gets kicked out of heaven before repenting and slowly redeems himself, eventually leveling up through constant battles to achieve enlightenment and become a Buddha himself. It’s a perfect story for a video game.

Black Myth: Wukong, a single-person action fighter RPG, imagines that Monkey died at some point after his journey to enlightenment. In this loose sequel, you play as a reincarnation of Monkey, working to collect six relics that can help revive you to your former state as Buddha. You do this by fighting bad guys. Lots and lots and lots of bad guys. There are anywhere from 90 to 113 “bosses” in the game’s six chapters, depending on how you’re counting.

Whether or not Wukong is good based on the merits of its gameplay alone is, like many things, in the eye of the beholder. Some say the game is boringly easy; others, prohibitively difficult. The game’s linear structure, in which you face off against the game’s bosses one after the other, is either too uninventive or just basic fun. It’s either wildly overhyped or actually even better than players expected. (That last review poses an important question: “What other game lets you transform into a giant rock so you can battle another giant rock?”)

Nearly everyone agrees, however, that Wukong’s art design is flawless. The graphics and visuals are gorgeous, the animation is superb, and the details are careful, with especially careful attention given to recreating actual Chinese relics and artifacts. (A closed museum that preserves such artifacts in China’s northern Shanxi province, where much of Wukong takes place, recently announced its re-opening in the wake of the game’s popularity.)

The game builds and expands upon the mythos of Journey, with elements of Buddhist and Chinese folklore ever present throughout. The main goal — to retrieve the six relics from different regions — is based on the six senses of Buddhism (that is, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind). Players have praised the game’s worldbuilding as well, from the many pseudo-historical characters inspired by Journey to the litany of customizable RPG mechanics, many of which draw further on Chinese culture.

But while all the praise cited above comes from English-speaking gamers, the most prominent line of attack against the game from people who seek to disparage its popularity is the claim that most of Wukong’s massive sales have come from China. While this doesn’t seem like much of a problem, unless you assume all Chinese gamers have poor taste or are brainwashed nationalists, there is plenty of evidence that the game is experiencing popularity worldwide. It currently stands at a score of 82 on the English-language Metacritic, and on Steam, 95 percent of the 700,000-plus user reviews are positive, and they seem to be written in a balanced mix of languages.

The game, however, has set off a strange discourse about — guess what — diversity and inclusion that the game itself barely invites. Now, far overshadowing all conversation about its themes and use of Chinese mythology, players and critics alike have been thrust into a discomfiting argument about whether Wukong is “woke” or not.

Wukong has been mired in controversy since well before its release. Just prior to August 20, the game’s co-publisher sent out the aforementioned list of taboo topics to gamers, reviewers, and streamers who had requested preview access to the game and who might be preparing to livestream their gameplay on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. The list of “Don’ts” the gamers were instructed to avoid reportedly ran thus:

Do NOT insult other influencers or players.

Do NOT use any offensive language/humor.

Do NOT include politics, violence, nudity, feminist propaganda, fetishization, and other content that instigates negative discourse.

Do NOT use trigger words such as ‘quarantine’ or “isolation” or “COVID-19.”

Do NOT discuss content related to China’s game industry policies, opinions, news, etc.

Needless to say, gamers of all varieties bristled at these restraints on their freedom of speech. Yet there are several reasons the company might have sent out this list for in-game discussion rules that have nothing to do with trying to quash discussion for the sake of quashing discussion.

It’s important to understand the role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in this moment. The CCP has a way of essentially freezing industries that grow too popular too quickly; see, for instance, that time it banned palace dramas for a couple of years because of the runaway popularity of one palace drama in particular. Gaming has already come under increasing fire from the government, which has attempted to dramatically limit the number of hours children spend playing video games. So sending out a list like this could be a tactical way for its developer, Game Science, and publishers to potentially stave off backlash from the CCP while mediating the government’s view of the game and its sudden popularity.

Still, some critics on the left who may have already been suspicious of a game originating from China took off their gloves. One outlet blasted the game for its “shameless lack of diversity;” another argued that “The lack of diversity and inclusivity resonates with the misogynistic comments reported to have been made by developers … the underlying feeling that women aren’t welcome in this world felt present throughout my gameplay experience.”

Even the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post took issue with the workplace sexism that may have undermined the game. As multiple media outlets pointed out, there’s some evidence to suggest that Game Science isn’t exactly progressive. In November 2023, IGN reported on a history of lewd and misogynistic remarks made against women by multiple staffers at the company on social media, including two co-founders. One co-founder fantasized about expanding staff and getting fellatio from all the new employees; another staffer claimed women’s games were different from men’s because of differences in their biology.

Other gamers unearthed ribald promotional images the studio has used in the past. The juvenile imagery, and the glib tone of many of the staff remarks, fit into the typical “boys will be boys” gamer milieu that dominated gamer culture in the US prior to the last decade. But years of concerted efforts to make games more accessible to women and other marginalized players have diminished that rampant sexism, and in 2024, it’s difficult to read some of these statements as anything but hopelessly dated at the least and actively hostile to women in games at worst. It doesn’t help that the company has so far responded to media requests regarding this history with “no comment.”

To gamers on the right, this outcry from the left was validation — a sign that the woke media had gone off the rails in its haste to bash anything that appeared to be anti-diverse. “Let me tell you, I am delighted just as the next guy that journalists and DEI advocates just can” cope with Wukong’s success,” wrote one redditor on Reddit’s longstanding pro-gamergate subreddit KotakuInAction.

Yet despite all of this background, there’s nothing really objectionable in the game itself. Claims that Wukong has no women are false; there are plenty of female characters, including female bosses, and (as far as we could see from a jaunt across the internet) there’s nothing overly sexualized or fetishistic about their designs.

As for claims that the game lacks diversity, while this is true in a technical sense, in that it lacks racial diversity, it’s also a fantasy about an anthropomorphized rhesus macaque fighting a huge array of other fantastical creatures of all shapes, sizes, and species. And it’s set in a world based on a culture to which US gamers generally have limited exposure. The game itself offers a valuable experience merely by introducing its players to the culture and folklore of China.

Is that a low bar? Possibly, but it’s still one not everyone meets. “I was in a second-hand bookshop the other day and suddenly held The Monkey King in my hands,” one gamer wrote on the aforementioned KotakuInAction post. “I might buy it next time and read it and then buy the game (on sale!). I think it will enhance the experience significantly.” This might be a rare perspective (that user, alas, was ruthlessly downvoted). Fans of Wukong using the game to rail against wokeness aren’t necessarily for embracing Chinese culture, but a nimble riff on that culture is still on offer through the game.

The most annoying thing about the debates surrounding Wukong, in fact, is just how little they have to do with the actual game. They’re being waged almost entirely in meta-arguments rather than actual consideration for either the narrative itself or the aims of the developers who made it.

What this fight does tell us, however, is that unlike neighboring Korea, China’s foray into exporting its soft power will likely be fraught with distrust and even bad faith. Fandom, and gaming, are toxic cultures on a good day — and the tentative entry of Chinese creators into the fray will likely only exacerbate the worst tendencies of the worst players.