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LORE

Journey to the West

Black Myth is a sequel-of-sorts to *Journey to the West*, the sixteenth-century Chinese novel attributed to Wu Cheng'en and one of the four great classical novels. You do not play Sun Wukong, the Monkey King — you play the Destined One, seeking the relics of a Sage who is already gone. Knowing the novel is not required, but it changes what the game is about.

The myth

🐒 The Great Sage
Sun Wukong, the Monkey King who defied Heaven, whose story frames the whole game.
🧭 The Destined One
A young monkey retracing the Great Sage's path to reclaim his scattered relics.
🌀 The Six Relics
Fragments of the Great Sage's power tied to the six senses — the goal of your journey.
☁️ Heaven's hand
Celestial forces and old enemies (like Erlang Shen) shadow your quest across the chapters.

Where it fits

📖 After the novel
It picks up long after the pilgrimage of the classic tale, treating those events as history.
🎬 Chapter animations
Each chapter ends with a hand-crafted animated short that deepens the myth — don't skip them.
🗿 Yaoguai as tragedy
Many bosses are sympathetic figures with their own grief, told through the shrines and drops.

Reading the story

Much of the lore lives in the bestiary-like journal entries you unlock by defeating enemies, plus the chapter-ending animations. If the Chinese mythology is unfamiliar, those journal blurbs are the friendliest way in — they reframe each Yaoguai King as a character rather than just an obstacle.

Key figures

🐒 The Destined One
Your silent monkey protagonist, chosen to gather the Great Sage's scattered relics.
🐷 Zhu Bajie
A returning Journey to the West companion who joins the quest in later chapters.
🐉 Erlang Shen
The heavenly general and the Great Sage's old rival — the secret boss of Chapter 3's Mount Mei area, on the route to the true ending.
☁️ The Celestial Court
Heaven's forces whose old grudge with Wukong drives the whole story.

The novel, briefly

  1. The Monkey King rebels

    Sun Wukong, born from stone, gains enormous power, declares himself equal to Heaven and is defeated and imprisoned for it.

  2. The pilgrimage

    Freed to escort the monk Tang Sanzang west in search of Buddhist scriptures, alongside Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing.

  3. Eighty-one ordeals

    The journey is a chain of encounters with Yaoguai — spirits and demons, many of them escaped servants of one god or another.

  4. Enlightenment

    The pilgrimage ends with the scriptures obtained and Wukong elevated. The game begins after all this, with the Sage's legacy scattered.

Who you meet

🐒 Sun Wukong
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Present as legacy and absence rather than as a companion — the game is about what he left behind.
🐲 Erlang Shen
The three-eyed god who defeated Wukong in the novel. His role here is the game's most loaded piece of casting.
🐷 Zhu Bajie
The pig of the pilgrimage: greedy, comic and far more capable than he lets on.
👹 The Yaoguai
Not simply monsters. In the novel most have a history, a grievance and often a master — which is why the game's bosses have names and stories.

Why it hits differently

The novel is satire as much as adventure: Heaven is a bureaucracy, gods are petty, and the demons are frequently more sympathetic than the authorities chasing them. The game keeps that tone, which is why its endings are ambivalent rather than triumphant.

Cross-checked

Cross-checked on 5 September 2026 against CGTN's 'Secrets from Journey to the West' series and TheGamer's ending explainer. Chapter 1's Black Bear Guai retells the novel's Black Wind King/Guanyin-Monastery episode, Chapter 2's Yellow Wind Sage the Great King of the Yellow Wind, Chapter 4's spider bosses the Pan Si Dong/Yellow Flower Temple and Chapter 5's Red Boy the Bull Demon King's son; no specific episode is claimed for Chapters 3 or 6. The standard ending leaves the Destined One sealed in rock the way Wukong once was, while the true ending breaks that cycle and leaves the Destined One free, with Wukong's memory intact rather than lost. What is still unverified is the only thing reading cannot settle — nobody here has played it.
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