The 15-minute ultra-long actual gameplay showcase brings *Black Myth: Zhong Kui* one step closer to its official release.
By Liu Shiwu
August 20 marks the 2nd anniversary of the launch of *Black Myth: Wukong*, and everyone is waiting for new updates on Game Science's upcoming new title *Black Myth: Zhong Kui*.
At 10 a.m., Game Science officially released the first 15-minute actual gameplay demo of *Black Myth: Zhong Kui*, which for the first time showcased the protagonist's combat mechanics and partial story clips, quickly topping the trending lists on Weibo and Bilibili. As of press time, the actual gameplay demo has garnered nearly 1 million views on Bilibili, roughly 50 minutes after its release.
Actual gameplay content of *Black Myth: Zhong Kui*
The official stated that the footage is from a work-in-progress build, running at a 21:9 aspect ratio. The product is still in the early stage of R&D, and the final content upon release may differ from what is shown in the demo.
On August 20, 2024, *Black Myth: Wukong* launched globally simultaneously, becoming the first breakout homegrown 3A game. To date, its global sales have exceeded 30 million copies, with total revenue surpassing 1 billion U.S. dollars, and it won the "Best Action Game" award at The Game Awards 2024 in December 2024.
At the dawn of August 20, 2025, exactly one year ago, the first CG teaser trailer for *Black Myth: Zhong Kui* was premiered as the closing highlight of the Gamescom Opening Night Live. Clocking in at less than two minutes, it unveiled the image of Zhong Kui riding a tiger for the first time, and racked up over 7 million views on Bilibili within 8 hours.
The first PV released one year ago
On the same day, the official account of *Black Myth: Wukong* was uniformly renamed to "Black Myth", with its positioning upgraded to a unified account for the entire series, which is widely interpreted by the industry as the official signal for the launch of the "Black Myth Universe".
On the Little New Year of the Chinese lunar calendar, February 10, 2026, Game Science released a 6-minute "actual gameplay" short video, which was playfully dubbed "A Bite of the Underworld" by players. The footage showed an ancient-style cooking video of a woman cooking monsters, with no player operation, no combat, and no appearance of Zhong Kui. Feng Ji joked that the team "had not even started development at all", while the short video was essentially a demonstration of the studio's technical prowess, still achieving an influence of over 1 million views on Bilibili within one hour.
A year later, Game Science has quickly rolled out the first extra-long gameplay demo of Zhong Kui, with its development efficiency significantly improved compared to the development period of *Black Myth: Wukong*.
Actual gameplay content of *Black Myth: Zhong Kui*
In July this year, during the overseas stop of the *Black Myth: Wukong* Symphonic Concert in Los Angeles, Game Science was interviewed by Spanish media, confirming that the core theme of Zhong Kui revolves around "life and death", and its narrative will be more straightforward than that of *Black Myth: Wukong*. The protagonist will no longer use a staff but a sword as the main weapon, the art style will continue and push the realistic route to the extreme, and the team promised to "release at least one trailer every year to report progress to players".
In early August, lead developer Yang Qi responded to AI-related questions on social media, stating that "we will not use AI for now, and insist on handcrafting all content", and hinted that the August 20 node would be "a regular update" without a full gameplay demo, but the studio directly presented a full 15-minute combat demo today.
Actual gameplay content of *Black Myth: Zhong Kui*
As the first official material that features Zhong Kui's actual combat, this demo breaks the awkward situation of the previous two teasers that did not show Zhong Kui at all, and the combat moves and partial story clips are presented for the first time. After the release of the gameplay demo, the community generally speculates that *Black Myth: Zhong Kui* is expected to be officially released in 2028.
It is worth mentioning that there is still no news about the DLC for *Black Myth: Wukong* today. Feng Ji previously stated that "the journey to the West will not end here", but it is obvious that the priority of the DLC has been yielded to the new title.
It was only one year ago that the project of Zhong Kui was just "set up with a new folder", and now the studio has delivered 15 minutes of high-quality content. The second puzzle of the Black Myth Universe is finally getting much closer to us.
This article was first published on "36Kr Games".