Chinese Companies Are Suspending Work for Employees to Play 'Black Myth: Wukong', Making Western Gamers Consider Taking PTO of Their Own

Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor

Aug 29, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

What does 1 million terabytes of game downloads look like on Steam? Black Myth: Wukong.

It's called an 'exabyte' and you've probably never even heard of data being discussed at that volume because it's absolutely bonkers. But on the opening weekend of the release of Black Myth: Wukong, the highly-anticipated game where you play as a mythical monkey battling the beasts of China's ancient lore, that's the kind of measurement we're using.

To comprehend how huge this game is becoming, we have to start from the basics. If you're a gamer, you've probably at least heard of the iconic God of War, which made a lot of gamers more familiar with Greek mythology. Well, Wukong is a little bit like that, except we're talking about all of China–thousands upon thousands of years of mythology that the Western world is probably not accustomed to, but for the most populated country in the world, this drop is huge.

To a Chinese audience, this game is the holy grail of gaming.

Not only is the game well-made, it dives deep into lore that Chinese gamers have grown up with, but have never seen come to fruition on a modern screen. That's insane. It'd be like taking a 12th-century peasant and showing them Game of Thrones in 2015. So even as Westerners cling to our gaming consoles and enjoy this beautiful game, imagine the glee of Chinese gamers when they got to play Wukong.

Some companies even gave their employees time off to go home and get some gaming in. If only my boss would do the same… Scroll onward for some more interesting nuggets about this game and how it's being received by the public one week after release.