Concord's failure and Black Myth Wukong's success is a wake-up call for modern gaming but for different reasons

Two notable names have been abuzz in the gaming industry lately: Sony and Firewalk's Concord and Game Science's Black Myth Wukong. The latter action RPG has amassed critical acclaim for being the first major AAA Chinese game to enter the global spotlight. On the other hand, the former has crashed and burned soon after its launch.

This is despite Concord being a major new IP from the acclaimed PlayStation brand. As they say, the consumer is king and the reception to both these titles reinforces the fact that the general public holds the power to dictate what flies and what doesn't with modern gaming.

---

Both Concord and Black Myth Wukong highlight the worst and best aspects of the gaming industry, respectively

Game Science's latest video game epic makes a strong impression right off the bat (Image via Game Science)

First showcased in 2020, Black Myth Wukong quickly grabbed public interest, thanks to its richly detailed Unreal Engine-powered graphics and unique take on Chinese mythology - or more specifically, the iconic Journey to the West novel. Throw in challenging difficulty and hack & slash combat, and it was a recipe for popularity. At the same time, gamers also expressed wariness.

After all, developer Game Science was not a proven studio at that point and their credibility was questioned until the game's launch, which wowed gamers. Fans' worries that Black Myth Wukong might be "too good to be true" melted as the game was subject to glowing critic reviews, and garnered 10 million units in sales in merely three days.

On the other hand, we have Concord. The latest new IP from the PlayStation-acquired developer Firewalk promised a new multiplayer FPS experience. It channels the spirit of familiar sci-fi media like Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

Since Sony's gaming branch is lacking in the PvP sector unlike Xbox and Nintendo, Concord could have been a decent competitor. Unfortunately, it was doomed to fail from the start.

Concord tried and failed, unsurprisingly (Image via PlayStation)

Officially announced just a year ago, public reception to the hero shooter has been middling at best. The reception to the July 2024 beta was also underwhelming and the final launch last month did not fix the game's many issues. It bombed so hard that Sony took the game offline, delisted it from storefronts on both PC and the PS5, and refunded players their purchases.

So what went wrong? Why did a game from a major publisher fail while an independent project rose above the ranks to steal the spotlight? The answer is simple: Black Myth Wukong delivered and appealed to fans, while Concord ran in the opposite direction by catering to no one.

Despite the industry's move to GaaS (Games as a Service) models a decade ago, single-player games remain ever-popular. Black Myth Wukong boasted no intrusive battle passes, in-game purchases, online-only models, or other traits that consumers generally turn their noses up at. Now, Concord is admittedly better than its contemporaries in this regard, too.

Black Myth Wukong is a confident showcase of its polished mechanics (Image via Game Science)

The game is a paid experience and does away with shop purchases and microtransactions, both of which are commonplace in other modern games. Unfortunately, it drops the ball in every other regard.

As we described in our Concord review, the game's $40 price tag, terrible character designs, boring game modes, technical issues, and other problems, including no marketing, result in an all-around unappealing product.

This especially rings true when competitors like Apex Legends and Overwatch 2 succeed where Concord flopped: they boast attractive character designs, engaging mechanics, and fun gameplay on top of a free cost of entry. Yes, fans do have issues with monetization and other aspects, but on fundamental terms, both games do the same thing Black Myth Wukong does: give players what they want.

The rise of Black Myth Wukong is thanks to picking up and running with the best, no-nonsense aspects of modern gaming while the fall of Concord is due to its handling being bizarrely out of touch with reality. The incidents surrounding these two games occurring so close to one another may have been coincidental but contrast solidly, proving how developers should (and should not) sell a game.