Black Myth Zhong Kui Gameplay Shows Five Areas Game Science Wants to Improve
Yang Qi’s comments on Black Myth Zhong Kui gameplay outline better lighting, more credible combat, less stage-like storytelling and fewer invisible walls.
The latest Black Myth: Zhong Kui official presentation gives players the clearest look yet at Game Science's next action RPG. More importantly, the new Black Myth Zhong Kui gameplay footage arrives with an unusually direct account of what the studio still wants to improve.
Game Science co-founder and art director Yang Qi described five priorities shaped by lessons from Black Myth: Wukong: stronger overcast lighting, more credible combat feedback, more disciplined visual design, less stage-like storytelling and fewer invisible walls. Together, these priorities form a practical production checklist for the game now taking shape.
A ghost story behind the New Year short
Before the longer gameplay presentation, Yang Qi explained the origin of an earlier New Year short in a separate Weibo post. The idea began during a late-night reading session with Yuan Mei's Qing-dynasty collection Zibuyu. In the tale, travellers encounter a frightening apparition, discover blood inside a piece of dead wood and boil it in oil.
The anecdote brought Yang Qi back to Zhong Kui's traditional association with eating ghosts. A literal depiction of devouring a spirit would have been difficult to stage, he wrote, so the team shifted the idea from eating ghosts to cooking them. That change created more room for visual invention while retaining the folkloric connection.
Game Science then filmed cooking references with a chef near West Lake. According to Yang Qi's account, an elaborate yellow-croaker and crispy-rice soup supplied movement and staging material for the animation team. The finished short places supernatural work beside broken tiles, a cold stove, tea and ordinary conversation. It suggests that Black Myth: Zhong Kui may be interested not only in a grand demon-quelling icon, but also in the human routines that surround folklore.
The official Black Myth Zhong Kui gameplay presentation shows a grounded, grey-toned world built around close physical encounters.
What the Black Myth Zhong Kui gameplay footage reveals
The five priorities offer a useful framework for reading what is already visible in the footage.
1. Making overcast weather feel convincing
The first priority is believable overcast light. Yang Qi said cloudy conditions can be especially immersive in narrative scenes, yet global-illumination problems may flatten objects, disturb colour relationships and expose weaknesses in automatic exposure.
Black Myth: Wukong often used strong sunlight, sunsets or cool directional light to restore contrast. In Black Myth Zhong Kui gameplay, the team wants grey skies to retain depth, material weight and readable silhouettes without depending on dramatic sunlight to hold every composition together.
A quiet encounter from the official footage shows the restrained overcast lighting discussed by Yang Qi.
2. More credible combat interaction and feedback
The second priority is combat that looks physically connected. Instead of leaning on showy camera movement, the team is building larger sets of foundational motion data, adding transitional animation frames and keeping the camera more restrained.
The practical goal is straightforward: attacks, reactions and movement should appear to belong to the same encounter. Yang Qi said the animation team continued recording motion-capture material throughout production.
Close-range combat in the official presentation emphasizes contact, reaction and readable impact.
3. Design that belongs to the world
The third point concerns visual design. Yang Qi argued for a more disciplined approach instead of ideas created only to look impressive in an isolated screenshot. The emphasis is on fundamentals, restraint and forms that feel native to the setting.
This does not mean the game will avoid spectacle. It means spectacle should grow from character, environment and function. If the team follows this principle, unusual creatures and locations should feel like parts of Zhong Kui's world rather than disconnected concept-art moments.
The official footage repeatedly places supernatural imagery inside environments with a strong physical atmosphere.
4. Less stage-like story presentation
The fourth priority is to reduce the sense that narrative scenes are being performed on a stage. Yang Qi described the familiar pattern of characters standing in fixed positions, trading lines and waiting for one another while barely using the surrounding space.
For Black Myth: Zhong Kui, Game Science wants more varied blocking and presentation. Characters should move through their surroundings, react more naturally and make a scene feel inhabited rather than arranged solely for the camera. The quieter exchanges in the footage may be as important to this goal as its large battles.
5. Fewer invisible walls
The fifth point addresses one of the most common criticisms of Black Myth: Wukong: invisible walls. Yang Qi's proposed solution was direct—the team should try to use as few of them as possible.
That is not simply a matter of removing collision barriers. It affects reachable terrain, environmental collision, map construction and the number of animations required when a character meets an obstacle. Yang Qi also suggested that some of this work touches gameplay ideas the studio is not ready to reveal.
What it does reveal is the standard Game Science is setting for itself: more natural light, more coherent physical action, more purposeful design, livelier dramatic staging and fewer artificial restrictions on movement. Taken together with the ghost-cooking story, the new Black Myth Zhong Kui gameplay shows a project looking in two directions at once—toward old Chinese tales and toward practical lessons from the studio's previous game.
Readers can follow the site's Black Myth Zhong Kui story overview, latest Black Myth Zhong Kui news and download and platform information as Game Science publishes more details.