Game Science has a potential hit on its hand. Judging by the number of wishlists and other metrics, Black Myth: Wukong should be a huge success for the Chinese developer upon its launch.
As you have probably already noticed, Black Myth: Wukong is now the most wishlisted upcoming video game on Steam. It is currently titles such as Hollow Knight: Silksong, Frostpunk 2, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.
The number of wishlists is not visible to the public, but GameDiscoverCo shared some estimates. Simon Carless and Co. looked at all the games showcased at recent “not-E3” events (plus Steam Next Fest) and analyzed their performance in terms of new wishlist additions* on Steam. Below are some findings (full data can be found in this Google Sheet):
*Note: One way to estimate wishlists for a game on Steam is to add a certain multiplier to the number of its followers, which is a publicly visible metric. It is usually between 7x and 20x the followers (the median is 12x). As Carless explained, “we’re extracting [the wishlist metric] algorithmically from Steam follower & ranking data, so it won’t be perfect.”
- Black Myth: Wukong added around 854k new wishlists on Steam after Sumer Game Fest, more than any other game featured at the Xbox Games Showcase, PC Gaming Show 2024, IGN Live, and other events from June 7 to 13;
- In terms of new wishlists additions, Game Science’s title is followed by Civilization VII (+593k), Once Human (+281k), and Dragon Ball: Sparkling! Zero (+182k), Delta Force: Hawk Ops (+138k), and DOOM: The Dark Ages (+138k), and Monster Hunter Wilds (+129k);
- According to GameDiscoverCo, Black Myth: Wukong currently has a total of over 4 million wishlists on Steam, with 60-70% of them being from China.
Game Science opened pre-orders for Black Myth: Wukong after presenting a new trailer at the Summer Game Fest 2024. The game became the highest-grossing game on Steam for the week of June 4-11 and remained the top-selling premium title last week.
In addition to its global success, Wukong is also performing impressively in China. According to SCMP, the hype was so big that physical copies of the game’s deluxe edition reached 160k pre-orders within a few hours of being posted on JD.com. With only 10k copies initially available ($276 each), pre-orders were 16x oversubscribed. Niko Partners director of research & insights Daniel Ahmad added that the second round of physical pre-orders “received more than 700,000 registrations.”
There are physical deluxe and collectors editions that come with various items + a digital code of the game. https://t.co/tNqpo8DMHv pic.twitter.com/MP8NdQRrLp
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) June 17, 2024
Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG inspired by the story of Sun Wukong (the Monkey King), one of the protagonists of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. The game will launch on August 20 on PC and PlayStation 5, with the Xbox Series X|S version coming later.
In 2021, Tencent also acquired a 5% stake in its developer Game Science.