'We won't see another game reach these heights until probably GTA 6': Palworld community manager congratulates Black Myth: Wukong for its continued success

An image of Bellanoir, a new raid boss in Palworld, standing intimidatingly in front of a swarm of meteors.

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Black Myth: Wukong has achieved considerable success since its release. In less than a day, it smashed Palworld's and Counter-Strike 2's concurrent players' records to become the second most-played Steam game ever. And despite leaving Palworld in the dust, the game's community manager doesn't seem to mind at all.

"I hope Wukong breaks 4mil," Palworld's community manager John "Bucky" Buckley says. "We won't see another game reach these heights until probably GTA 6." As of writing, there are 1.5 million players in Black Myth: Wukong, and it currently has a 24-hour and overall peak of 2.2 million, about 100,000 more than Palworld. There's been a ton of comparison between the two games because of how close they are in peak player count.

It's been some time since Palworld saw those kinds of staggering numbers, which is pretty normal considering how long it's been out for. "I dunno what the negativity is for," Bucky says. "People had fun. People continue to have fun. As game devs, isn't that literally all we ask for? People to enjoy our games."

Previously, Bucky has even said that he'd vote for Black Myth: Wukong if it ever went up against Palworld in a player vote: "I'd vote for Wukong because I think this is the sort of positive change needed in the Chinese gaming world. Wukong is proof a well-made singleplayer game can be big, and not some mobile hybrid with 5,000 variations of microtransactions."

While the first day for Wukong has clearly been a success, there have been a couple of strange hang-ups along the way. It was reported that Black Myth: Wukong had some strange streamer guidelines, including not discussing Covid-19 or "feminist propaganda." There's been a couple of different reactions to this. A personal favourite of mine has to be MoonMoon's Wukong stream that was titled "Covid-19 isolation Taiwan (is a real country) feminism propaganda)."

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Elie is a news writer with an unhealthy love of horror games—even though their greatest fear is being chased. When they're not screaming or hiding, there's a good chance you'll find them testing their metal in metroidvanias or just admiring their Pokemon TCG collection. Elie has previously worked at TechRadar Gaming as a staff writer and studied at JOMEC in International Journalism and Documentaries – spending their free time filming short docs about Smash Bros. or any indie game that crossed their path.