Black Myth: Zhong Kui

Overview

Black Myth: Zhong Kui is an upcoming single-player action RPG developed and published by Game Science. It is the second title in the Black Myth series, following Black Myth: Wukong, which sold over 28 million copies after its August 2024 launch. The game was announced as the show-closing reveal at Gamescom Opening Night Live on August 19, 2025, with a CG teaser trailer presented by host Geoff Keighley.

Where Wukong drew from Journey to the West, Zhong Kui shifts to a different corner of Chinese mythology. The game follows Zhong Kui, the ghost-catching god who wanders between Hell and Earth: a Taoist deity who, according to legend, was a brilliant scholar denied his rightful honors because of his ugly face, killed himself in rage, and was reborn as the King of Ghosts in the Chinese underworld. It is a darker, stranger story than the Monkey King's, and that seems to be exactly why Game Science picked it.

Development background

The idea came from Yang Qi, Game Science's art director and co-founder. Yang dreamed of "a strange man with a black face and a red beard" standing on a balcony holding a tiger. He later identified the image as matching Ming dynasty paintings of Zhong Kui riding a tiger and pitched the concept to colleagues as a CG short film. It grew into a full game project.

CEO Feng Ji has been candid about what led to the decision. After spending years working toward Wukong's release, he described feeling "confusion, emptiness, and fear" once it shipped. The team had been working on Wukong DLC, but Feng Ji found himself "superficially working on the DLC while deeply longing for a breakthrough." A conversation with Yang Qi about the Zhong Kui dream changed direction for the studio.

Feng Ji quoted Nintendo's Satoru Iwata: "There is no future on the existing extension line." He wanted to "free our hands, experiment boldly, break from fixed formulas, and start from scratch." At the time of the Gamescom 2025 reveal, the studio described the project as "little more than an empty folder", they made the CG trailer "to inform everyone that this new project has officially entered development status." The game director has said he has "absolutely no idea" when it will be ready. Industry estimates land between late 2027 and 2029.

Setting and story

The game is rooted in the classic Chinese folktale "Zhong Kui Banishing Evil" (钟馗驱邪). Keighley introduced it at Gamescom as starring "the ghost-catching god who wanders between Hell and Earth." The trailer showed Zhong Kui riding a massive tiger into a rain-soaked town at night, flanked by small demon attendants carrying his iconic ghost-slaying sword.

The spiritual hierarchy of the Chinese afterlife appears to play a central role. Zhong Kui operates within a structured supernatural realm. Organized by rank and purpose, not pure chaos. Youdu, the capital of the underworld, and the Ten Courts of Hell provide a rich setting for exploration. The game deals with themes of injustice, transformation, and the blurry line between the living and the dead.

Gameplay

No gameplay footage has been released. Game Science confirms it is a single-player action RPG with no microtransactions, the same business model as Wukong. Feng Ji has promised "a new hero, new gameplay, new visuals, new technology, and a new story," stressing that the team wants to "break from fixed formulas."

Zhong Kui is expected to wield a sword and a fan rather than Wukong's staff. His mythology suggests ghost summoning and Taoist exorcism abilities. The Chinese New Year 2026 video showed elaborate cooking scenes involving supernatural creatures, and Feng Ji hinted that "future gameplay may combine monster hunting with cooking", though the studio stressed the video was non-canon.

For more, see the combat article.

Platforms

The game is confirmed for PC (Windows), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Game Science's official statement says it will release on "PC and all mainstream console platforms." No Steam store page exists yet.

Trailers

Two pieces of official video have been released. The Gamescom CG teaser (August 19, 2025) hit over 10 million views on Bilibili within 24 hours. Game Science simultaneously rebranded its social media accounts from "Black Myth: Wukong" to simply "Black Myth," signaling the franchise expansion. The second was a six-minute in-engine Chinese New Year 2026 special (February 10, 2026) that hit nearly 5 million views across platforms within five hours.