Rebirth 2010: I taught Mr. Lei how to make a mobile phone

Chapter 971 Building Momentum: Pre-sales Begin

When the boss asked this question, Feng Ji immediately broke out in a cold sweat: "They're trying to save him, they're already trying! It's just not completely finished yet."

"This is how we designed the storyline for the fourth sister," Feng Ji said, pulling up a concept art. "She was thrown into the alchemy furnace by the Crane Immortal to refine a golden elixir. Players need to solve the mechanisms in the Eight Trigrams Furnace, defeat the alchemy puppets, and finally use the golden elixir to reshape her physical body."

He paused, observing Chen Mo's expression, and continued to explain: "This setting not only echoes the foreshadowing of 'golden core transforming into human form' in the original Shadow God Record, but also subtly matches the classic scene of 'the Great Sage forging fiery eyes' in the original Journey to the West."

We wanted to use this method to both redeem the character and pay homage to the classics.

"Yes, yes, that's good, that's good!" Chen Mo nodded repeatedly, a satisfied smile on his face.

Feng Ji secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but still felt lingering fear when he recalled that late-night phone call.

Who would have thought that this business tycoon, a legendary producer in the Chinese game industry, would make a late-night phone call about the fate of a side character in a game?

What impressed him even more was that Chen Mo later questioned the game's ending: "How can you wear the golden headband? Wouldn't that have been a waste of time?"

After he quickly explained that there was a hidden ending and gave a brief description of the plot of the hidden ending, Chen Mo finally gave up.

Feng Ji shared this amusing anecdote at a subsequent internal meeting, which greatly excited all the staff at Youke.

After all, a game that can attract such attention from the big boss, to the point that he could even become a fan, is bound to be successful.

As the talks progressed, Feng Ji continued to introduce other plans for the DLC: new maps, new scenes, a new skill system, and equipment mechanics. Every detail reflects the team's hard work.

"When is the DLC expected to be completed?" Chen Mo asked.

"Next June. However, if Black Myth is released in mid-November as you just mentioned, we may need to allocate some manpower to support the main game, which may affect the development progress."

"Okay, go at your pace. But isn't this game a bit too difficult? Is it too easy for new players to get started?"

Feng Ji's expression was slightly strange, and he answered with a forced smile, "Uh, Mr. Mo, is it possible that it's not a problem with the game?"

Chen Mo was taken aback at first, then burst into laughter, pointing at Feng Ji and saying, "You little rascal! Let the market test you after it goes live!"

Finally, the two finalized the game's pre-sale and release dates.

Now that everything is ready, both Chen Mo and Feng Ji are absolutely certain that this "black monkey" is about to emerge and will surely shock everyone.

The day after Chen Mo left, on November 2nd, Game Science officially announced on its website that Black Myth: Wukong would begin pre-sales on November 8th and officially launch on November 15th. The final trailer for Facing Fate was also released at the same time.

With the full-channel promotion of platforms under the Beyond Group (Bilibili, Zhihu, Douyin, Weibo, etc.), and even with the help of Baidu and Tencent, this news swept from China to overseas like a whirlwind in just one day.

This game, which already carried the expectations of countless players, has been pushed to new heights.

Putting aside the game itself, the sheer terrifying streaming capabilities of the game's developers have astonished everyone.

Most players and industry professionals regard it as a milestone for China's game industry in moving towards the AAA field.

Every stunning gameplay demo and playtest reinforces this belief that it has the potential to break the monopoly of major international game developers in the top-tier single-player game market.

Judging from the released footage, its graphics, art design, scene construction, and boss battle presentation are all world-class. In particular, the recreation of the atmosphere of classical Eastern mythology is breathtaking, and the mysterious aura it contains has attracted the attention of countless Western players.

Many people expect it to become a successful "cultural export" product, allowing global players to understand and fall in love with the Eastern fantasy masterpiece, *Journey to the West*, through this high-quality game. When Chen Mo specifically retweeted and liked the public beta announcement from Game Science's official Weibo account, it sparked heated discussions among netizens.

"I'm so envious of CEO Mo's every day; he even gets to experience games ahead of time."

"He's an investor! I just want to know if it's fun or not? If it's fun, I'll buy it! @XiaoMo"

Chen Mo replied directly: "Just play! Chinese people don't lie to other Chinese people!"

"Holy crap, it's the real deal! No doubt about it, count me in for the pre-order, deluxe edition, here we go!"

"+1+1, since President Mo has spoken, the quality is definitely guaranteed."

On GHome (the world's largest comprehensive digital distribution platform), Black Myth: Wukong has topped the global anticipation list.

As for Valve's Steam, although it can rival G-Home in overseas markets, it is no match for them in the Chinese market.

On the one hand, G-Home supports WeChat login, which is extremely convenient; on the other hand, Steam's network is unstable, requiring an accelerator for smooth access—and the best accelerator on the market happens to be a product of the company.

After just a few days of buzz, almost everyone in the gaming industry is aware of the upcoming release of this domestically produced AAA title. Although the specific price has not yet been announced, considering the investment from Beyond the Shore, the endorsement from Chen Mo, and the fact that it is the first domestically produced AAA title, players expect the price to be quite high.

Countless Chinese gamers have already prepared their wallets, waiting for the pre-sale to begin on November 18th.

Of course, dissenting voices have never been absent.

A common concern is that the enthusiasm of the media and community has elevated the game to an excessive level, risking a "killing with kindness" effect. Under such high expectations, any flaw may be magnified infinitely.

Another point of contention is that the Game Science team has never led such a large-scale narrative-driven project before. Their last success was during the "Dou Zhan Shen" era, which was amazing in the early stages but ended poorly.

Therefore, some people have reservations about whether the team can tell a complex and profound story of "Journey to the West".

A few people also pointed out that although the game's audiovisual effects are top-notch based on the demo and trailers, the actual gameplay performance is still questionable.

After all, this is the first time that the BeyondCrafts game engine has been used in a AAA title; there has never been a case of it being used in a single-player PC game of this scale before.

Therefore, during the period from the announcement by Game Science to the start of pre-orders, Black Myth: Wukong was in a contradictory state of being both "mythologized" and "targeted".

Those who love it regard it as a faith, while those who question it stand by and watch, waiting for it to fall from its pedestal.

Fortunately, the overall domestic public opinion environment is supportive, and these criticisms have not become mainstream.

However, after the pre-sale and release dates were announced, in addition to the usual discussions on gameplay, culture, technology, etc., a controversy initiated by a specific organization, revolving around the "absence of female roles" and "team culture," suddenly became the focus of overseas public opinion.

Critics have pointed out that in the numerous trailers and footage shown for Black Myth: Wukong, there are very few significant, positive female characters.

They believe that the game world is full of male monsters and gods, which ignores and marginalizes female characters.

Even more absurdly, IGN, a well-known international media outlet, reported that several organizations emailed Game Science, demanding up to 700 million in "guidance fees."

The reason given was that "although the game's protagonist is a male monkey, he is not purely black."
(End of this chapter)