Black Myth: Zhong Kui is the next game in the acclaimed action RPG series Black Myth series, and in a new video especially made for Chinese New Year, the sequel has given us a new look at its incredible tech. As well as showing off early-stage in-engine gameplay footage, this tease is littered with things to literally chew on about what this new take on Chinese mythology could bring.
Perfectly prepared
The focus on food and the approaching Chinese New Year is especially interesting, given the character Zhong Kui's original mythological origins - in the myths, Zhong Kui was a demon hunter and protector who returns from the dead during the New Year celebrations, and is known for eating ghosts.
So while the cooking might just look like a nice way to show off some impressive lighting, animation and physics as meat gets chopped and pots boil, Zhong Kui is famous for eating all sorts of spirits in all sorts of creative ways. Depending on the sources, he's torn them into chunks and eaten the pieces, swallowed them whole, minced them up, pickled them. It's just a whole cook book of evil eating.
So this new teaser focusing on creating a meal from demonic and magic ingredients is just doubling down on that legend. The cook could also potentially also be his sister, sometimes portrayed as a demon hunter herself, who travels with him in some stories. She's certainly no stranger to the otherworldly ingredients she's preparing, or the monsters helping her.
Many of the ingredients seem to tie into other Chinese myths - feng is meat with eyes that grows back as fast as it's eaten, for example. While Chiru is a divine fish with a human face that can heal illnesses when eaten. All of which sound like they could be very useful in the game itself, so maybe this is more than just culinary showboating and an indication of meals and cures you might be preparing yourself before a battle.
Cooking aside, Zhong Kui is a big deal in Chinese mythology, with images of him still used to this day to ward off evil in people's homes. And, as a sort of legendary combat exorcist, he's the perfect basis for a video game - a supernatural hero dedicated to ridding the world of evil and, depending on which version of the story you read, accompanied by an array of various creatures, ghosts or demons he can call on for help. (Some of which might be helping out in the kitchen here.)
The only question hanging over all this is who is the hooded figure in the closing tease? The new video gives nothing away bar the briefest glimpse of a very human looking chin when the hood is pulled off. While the video is described as 'non-canon' it's an odd sting to end on. It's definitely not Zhong Kui - we've already seen him in a previous reveal trailer and he's famous for a big, hard to miss beard. So, non-canon or not, who's getting a meal that lavishly cooked? There's one more legend here that might give us some hint as to what's going on here and that's Meng Po’s Soup. This mysterious broth was said to be given to souls before they reincarnate, wiping away their memories to begin again as a blank slate. So… has this all been just a really fancy way of showing how you'll respawn in Black Myth: Zhong Kui when you die?
