Black Myth: Wukong is currently the most played game on Steam and continues to break records

As I write this, China Game Science Studio’s action-adventure game Black Myth: Wukong is the most played game on Steam. It currently has 1,400,932 players (peak 1,443,570), surpassing all the usual top five games on Steam, including Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Wukong’s launch had already been predicted to be strong, with the game being Steam’s number one seller for weeks, but for a single-player offline game, its concurrent player numbers are pretty astonishing.

Although the number of concurrent players is still increasing, as things stand, Black Myth: Wukong has become the fourth most popular game in Steam history, just surpassing Lost Ark and Dota 2 earlier in the day. Its next target is Counter-Strike 2, for which it needs about 400,000 players.

However, it will be interesting to see if it can get close to or even surpass Palworld, which peaked at 2,101,867 at its peak. This would also make Wukong the third most popular paid game on Steam, behind only PUBG and Palworld. Of course, PUBG peaked at an astonishing 3,257,248 concurrent players before it became a paid game, long before it became free-to-play.

It’s also worth noting that these numbers only reflect Steam data; Wukong is also available on WeGame in China. Even though it’s not on PC, we don’t know how many copies the PS5 version has sold. The game’s popularity is also reflected in Steam user reviews, which are based on more than 28,000 reviews and are very positive despite the game’s use of the often-hated Denuvo DRM.

While these numbers are impressive, the source of the interest may not be surprising: According to estimates from GameDiscover, 88% of Wukong sales came from China, followed by the United States, which accounted for only 3%.

However, the release of Black Myth: Wukong was not all smooth sailing. According to Eurogamer, just yesterday, the game’s co-publisher sent a note document to anchors and influencers, and the document was made public.

The marketing document, whose authenticity has been confirmed by multiple people, explicitly asks participants not to include “trigger words such as ‘isolation,’ ‘quarantine,’ or ‘coronavirus'” in their reporting. It also asks participants not to talk about “politics,” “fetishism,” or “feminist propaganda.”

The last point is particularly interesting because Game Science, the company behind Wukong, has long faced accusations of sexism and mistreatment of women, things that Wukong’s marketers likely didn’t want influencers to mention.

If you’re one of the millions of players who’s just started Journey to the West, use these Wukong tips and tricks to get started, and check back for our guides regularly. We recently published guides to help you find Stone Hard and Tiger Fierce, as well as this guide to help you find the location and use of the Buddha’s Eyeball.