Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Odyssey, and Origins all have one thing in common: they have a Discovery mode, which replaces murder with learning. You can, literally, take guided tours led by historians on each of the game's respective maps. Instead of diving off a Sphinx and plunging your hidden blade into someone's spine, you can look at the Sphinx and read a paragraph about its significance. Maybe you discover an actual piece of ancient Egypt in an actual collection at an in-game museum. Maybe you play as a young Anglo-Saxon in Valhalla instead, and cook nettle soup after buying a fresh “Friar Tuck” from the local barber (no guarantees on that last one).
All of which is to say that Black Myth: Wukong deserves such a mode as well. There were so many times during my playtesting period where I stopped, looked, and wondered what the meaning of something was. Not just in the architecture, but in the characters as well. So here I am with a proposition: why not, instead of hitting things with my staff, use it as a cane and point it at things I want to learn?
If you didn't already know, Black Myth: Wukong is a soulful, hybrid action-adventure game heavily inspired by the classic Chinese novel Journey To The West. You control an athletic monkey in third-person, and as you wander through verdant forests, golden deserts, and crimson pagodas, you deal out punishment with a stick. Huge frogs with electrified tongues, whirling dragons, corrupted monks with spikes for hair follicles, all must be struck.
But between the whiplashes, there is a treasure trove of beauty to be discovered. And it’s to the point where I wish little museum-style paragraphs could describe 90% of what happens on screen, to be honest. We’re talking about the characters, like the wise man who helps you in the first chapter who looks like he picked a potato and left it in a kitchen drawer for a bit too long. Also, the little wand he holds, at the end of which is a curled hand. What about the tiger temple in the second chapter, where the walls house intricate figures in small circular windows? What about the towering statues at the beginning of chapter 3, lit only by the light pouring through the cracks in the cavern above?
Sure, there are plenty of text descriptions of the game's key characters and all its frog demons and such. And yes, I could go on to read Journey To The West (which I intend to do, by the way). But I think that's still not an argument against a mode that could introduce us to the history and mythology of ancient China, and how Game Science drew inspiration from it. I just think it's rare for a game of this magnitude to come along and immerse us in Chinese history, especially since China is a place I sometimes stupidly forget about and is full of beautiful and important historical sites.
And in a way, I think the game's relative linearity suits the whole Discovery mode. We could turn into a cicada and fly through its landmarks, while a monk explains the ins and outs of turtle-shaped incense burners or the carvings on a large vase. Maybe he could show us how the developers went about it and photograph real-world sites and their Importance. They told me in my overview that they have visited over 100 sites since 2021 for 3D scanning of the environment.
The most complicated thing about Game Science doing a museum exhibit on Chinese culture in gaming is that neither it nor its partners seem willing or able to discuss the game’s relevance to today’s China. The studio notably battened down the hatches in response to an IGN report on sexism within Game Science itself and the Chinese games industry as a whole. Their partners at Hero Games, meanwhile, have asked some content creators to avoid talking about “politics” and “feminist propaganda” in their coverage of the game. It’s unclear how much of this reflects the developers’ intentions or a need to appease Chinese censors. Adding a discovery mode to enlighten people from other cultures would make the developers’ silence on other fronts more visible.
It's a shame, because there's so much to discover in this game. At this point, I'm just a rambling man hungry for a tour of the world of Black Myth, without all the fighting and killing. Let's shake hands with rats and stroke our furry chins while gazing at some statues. I think that would be fun.