Black Myth: Wukong Director tearfully calls out The Game Awards: ‘I came for nothing’

In the aftermath of Black Myth: Wukong’s perceived snub at The Game Awards 2024, the game’s Director has criticized the ceremony.

It’s been a massive year for gaming and it all culminated at The Game Awards 2024, though as with most years, there’s been a bit of contention around the big winner with Astrobot taking out the coveted Game of the Year award.

In the mix for GOTY was Black Myth: Wukong which even we thought deserved a little more love at the show. The game was a massive hit for developer Game Science’s first outing and became the second-most played game of all time on Steam in just a few hours of its launch.

The team behind the game was apparently very confident in Black Myth: Wukong so losing out on the major award has left a sour taste in the mouth of certain devs. Director and CEO of Game Science, Feng Ji, took to Chinese social media site Weibo to vent his frustration and question the selection criteria for the Game Awards.

Game Science

Black Myth: Wukong was praised for its action combat and boss design.

Black Myth: Wukong devs shed tears over GOTY loss

Despite losing out on Game of the Year, Black Myth: Wukong had an impressive showing at this year’s Game Awards. It was nominated in five different categories including Best Game Direction and it won both the Best Action-Adventure award and the Player’s Choice award.

Even with those distinctions, Black Myth: Wukong Director Feng Ji was still dissatisfied and a machine-translated Weibo post from the CEO breaks down why. “I must admit that there are disappointments and regrets,” Feng elaborated. “The games nominated this year are all excellent, but I really don’t understand the selection criteria for this year’s Game of the Year. I came here for nothing!”

The developer revealed he was so confident in the game’s potential success, he had written a Game of the Year acceptance speech two years ago. “It’s normal to be a little angry when you are so confident but not recognized by others,” he explained in reference to the dissatisfaction and outcry of players in the aftermath of the awards.

It’s important to note that when using machine translation, particularly for written languages based primarily on symbols like Chinese, the subtleties of tone and inflection can be lost. It has been pointed out that Feng’s post is not as scathing as it might initially read.

The Game Science CEO also took time to express his confidence in the future of Chinese game development based on Black: Myth Wukong’s success. “This is the inevitable result of the collision of Chinese culture, Chinese talents, Chinese business environment, Chinese game industry, and the vast number of players around the world,” he said. “I believe that there will be more colleagues in the future who will bring better, more interesting, and more confident Chinese stories to the world.”

Despite the introspection shown in the latter half of Feng Ji’s post on Weibo, there’s no denying that the Game of the Year loss has deeply affected the developer. It also appears to have been a hit to the morale of others who worked on the game.

Game Awards attendee and former Sony Santa Monica Writer Alanah Pearce noted that the team behind Black Myth: Wukong seemed dejected at the ceremony itself. “The Wukong team were crying when they did not win which is definitely unusual,” she explained during a live stream. “They were upset, definitely upset when they didn’t win.”

Despite not winning 2024’s Game of the Year award, Black Myth: Wukong was still a major commercial success. The developers are also working on DLC for the game.

Perhaps with the precedent set by Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, Game Science may have a second chance at winning the big one.