Asia Tech Wire (Aug 20) -- The much-anticipated Black Myth: Wukong, China's first AAA game, debuted at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, and immediately made headlines on Chinese social media platforms.

It is an action role-playing game set in Chinese mythology and is based on the Chinese classic Journey to the West.

Less than an hour after its official release, the game topped Steam's hottest games list and attracted a lot of coverage from Chinese media outlets.

Steam data shows that six hours after its release, more than 1.43 million players were playing Black Myth: Wukon online at the same time.

In addition to Steam, users can also purchase the game on PC platforms such as Epic Games and WeGame, as well as PlayStation 5 consoles.

There are four versions of the game, the Digital Standard Edition priced at 268 yuan, the Digital Deluxe Edition at 328 yuan, the Physical Deluxe Edition at 820 yuan and the Physical Collector's Edition at 1,998 yuan.

Black Myth: Wukong has made it through four full years since August 2020, when a live demo video was revealed.

Official sales channels recently revealed that all physical copies of the game are now sold out.

According to the relevant chart data, from June 8, when the pre-order was opened to July 13, the game sold 1.2 million copies, with sales of nearly 400 million yuan.

Black Myth: Wukong's developer Game Science was founded in June 2014, with all of its founding team members coming from Tencent.

Game Science's founder, Feng Ji, was a core member of Tencent's Asura Online project, which was also built on the well-known IP of the Monkey King.

At the end of March 2021, Game Science confirmed that it had received an investment from Tencent, which will take a 5% stake in the startup.