Redmond Carolipio: The story of "Journey to the West" is rich with content, and this will be one of the more prominent mainstream gaming forays into the world of the "Chinese epic", mysticism and fighting styles in tow. Within the first few minutes of footage, I fell in love with the presentation and some of the gameplay concept that can provide insight into the design philosophy. I just hope it's not going to be soul-crushingly difficult, falling into the Elden Ring-inspired trap that now all good action RPG games have to be hard.

Cody Medellin: Chinese developer Game Science made a huge splash a few years back when it showed off a demo video of Sun Wukong in a Chinese medieval setting using Unreal Engine 5. To this day, with the only other examples of Unreal Engine 5 being The Matrix Awakens demo and the latest build of Fortnite, it remains a perfect example of what the engine can do in the right hands. Aside from the controversy surrounding the remarks of the studio head, the one concern is that this is all coming from a rookie development studio. If there's some real gameplay substance behind the graphical showcase, it'll be one hell of a debut.

Rainier Van Autrijve: While I'm not too familiar with the 16th-century Chinese novel "Journey to the West," upon which Black Myth: Wukong is based, when I came across the first footage released in 2020, I was immediately impressed with the presentation, the quality of the graphics, and above all, the fluid combat. While there is not too much info about the game , you control The Destined One, a monkey based on The Monkey King (Sun Wukong) character, wielding a variety of era-appropriate weapons, such as sticks, swords, a ji (Chinese halberd) and plenty more. Chinese developer Game Science seems to have gone to great lengths to make the martial arts movements silky smooth, but the game also allows you to transform into a flying insect or a giant monster. I'm not sure if this is part of the source material, but it only makes it all more intriguing. Black Myth: Wukong is an action/RPG that's labeled as a Souls-like, but hopefully its difficulty will not be as punishing as Dark Souls and the recent Elden Ring. Using the Unreal Engine 5 and supporting the latest NVIDIA tech, such as Raytracing and DLSS, Black Myth: Wukong is a title I'll be keeping my eyes on when it comes out later this year.