Black Myth Wukong mirrors GTA V success with 30 million copies sold in less than 2 years

Black Myth Wukong has now sold more than 30 million copies, beating out entire video game franchises--a feat that few video games can pull off except for Minecraft, Call of Duty, or maybe Grand Theft Auto V.

2

A new document published by China's Belt and Road initiative--an infrastructure strategy focused on bolstering economic trade--has revealed some surprising sales figures for Black Myth Wukong. According to the figures, Game Science's myth-infused action game has sold an astounding 30 million copies in less than 2 years on the market.

To put those numbers into perspective, Call of Duty games used to sell tens of millions of copies upon release, and Vanguard, which was largely believed to have missed expectations, still sold 30 million copies in a similar timeframe. Other titles like Grand Theft Auto V typically ship 5 million or so units per quarter, leading to roughly 20 million copies shipped per year.

The colossal sales are a cause for celebration in China, where Black Myth Wukong's authentic adaptations of cultural legends resonate the strongest. Interestingly enough, this sales milestone is something that Game Science investor Hero Games was confident in. Back in 2024, shortly after the game was released, Hero Games' Daniel Wu said that he believed the game could achieve 30 million sales in its lifetime.

It was also revealed at the time that Black Myth Wukong had a development budget of around $70 million.

We can't fully determine the profits from Wukong's success, but they are undoubtedly staggering; the game had already achieved at least around $1 billion in sales revenue on 18 million game sales at this time, however there have been discounts since then so the game hasn't maintained its full $70 price throughout.

Wukong was then released on Xbox a year later in 2025, which helped invigorate sales.

Game Science is currently developing another game in the series, Black Myth: Zhong Kui, which is currently in its early stage of production.