Black Myth: Wukong Has Lost 78% Of Its Playerbase, And It Makes Sense

In a year full of gaming surprises, the mind-blowing launch of "Black Myth: Wukong" stands out as a particularly memorable moment. Developer Game Science had only worked on a handful of mobile titles before pivoting to a AAA action game, but the studio managed to produce an incredibly engaging combat system, a stunningly detailed world, and some of the most impressive graphics we've ever seen in a game. In the first week, droves of people poured into the game, quickly hit a peak of 2.4 million concurrent players on Steam. That's an unbelievable amount of people showing up for a single-player game from a relatively unknown studio — but because of that, it's also no surprise "Black Myth: Wukong" hasn't managed to maintain those numbers.

Since its peak, "Black Myth: Wukong" has lost about 78% of its active players, but the developers at Game Science probably aren't panicking just yet. The game is still hitting a peak of more than 500,000 players on a near-daily basis, and that number is pretty fantastic for any game, much less a single-player title. Odds are good that "Black Myth: Wukong" is going to keep bleeding players for a while, and it makes total sense, but there are a couple of things on the horizon that could cause that concurrent player count to spike. Here's why all you "Wukong" superfans shouldn't freak out just yet.

It's worth noting that the dip looks dire for "Black Myth: Wukong" because the game was so successful. It set a record for the second-highest concurrent player count in Steam history, and it's the only single-player game in the top five. "Helldivers 2" lost 90% of its players, and that game is still doing largely fine. While that's a live-service title that keeps getting updated, there's a pretty clear reason why players are leaving "Black Myth: Wukong": they either gave up on the super-challenging soulslike game — or they beat it.

"Black Myth: Wukong" has more than enough content to justify dropping $60 on it. There are six massive levels, all filled with secret bosses, items, and locations to uncover. There are also more than a hundred bosses for players to test their skills against, so you can easily spend dozens of hours just hunting down the biggest enemies that "Black Myth: Wukong" can throw at you and studying their moves. Even with all that, however, the game isn't infinite. Players have had their fun with Game Science's epic action adventure, and now they're moving on to a new title. As more people beat the game, they're going to leave it behind. However, the developers are already working on ways to bring more players in.

Shortly after the launch of "Black Myth: Wukong," Xbox players got some bad news: The port for that system is still an indeterminate amount of time away from release. Game Science still hasn't announced an official release date for "Black Myth: Wukong" on Xbox, but whenever that day comes, there's going to be a big wave of new players heading into the game.

That's not the only plan Game Science has in the works, however. "Black Myth: Wukong" fans had their dreams come true less than a month after the game was released when it was revealed that the developers are already hard at work on DLC. As ambitious as the game is, the developers originally planned on making it significantly longer (to the point where several scenes were left on the cutting room floor), so we know that Game Science already has a pile of ideas for where to take players next. "Black Myth: Wukong" is seeing a massive drop in players, but we imagine that the game's overall lifespan is going to end up being just as impressive as its initial launch.