Since Black Myth: Wukong became a mega-hit, people have been taking China's video game industry more seriously, including developers in Japan who have been sharing their praise.
In a series of tweets spotted and translated by Automaton, a clip of upcoming base-building RPG Arknights: Endfield, developed by a Shanghai studio called Hypergryph, was praised by Japanese devs who went on to discuss China's mobile and gacha game scene.
"When I look at this, I feel like the biggest difference between recent Chinese games and domestic [Japanese] games doesn't lie in the graphics, but in the animation," writes Alwei, a representative of Indie-Us Games. "And it's not just the way the characters move – it's the physics, the camera work, and the way it guides the viewer's line of sight. Every aspect of the animation is far superior to that of domestic games."
The video is certainly… expressive. On a surface level, it's what you'd expect from a gacha game; a woman in a revealing outfit jumping and jiggling. On a technical level, though, it's easy to see what Alwei is writing about, as the animations do look incredibly smooth.
これをみて、最近の中国産ゲームと国産ゲームとの最大の差はルックではなく、アニメーションへのこだわりの差なんだと感じる。アニメーションはキャラの動きだけでなく、物理、カメラワーク、視線誘導など、あらゆる部分で完成度が国産より遥かに上をいってることを感じざるえない。 https://t.co/TRmSYGpoNOJanuary 28, 2025
One of the most-popular video games at the moment is made by Chinese studio miHoYo, Genshin Impact. It and other games made by miHoYo, such as Zenless Zone Zero and Honkai: Star Rail, have all done incredibly well, causing plenty of us to part with our cash for the chance to pull rare characters.
Alwei adds that there's a shortage of animators in Japan which may be why China seems to have overtaken the country in that area of game development. "It remains to be seen to what extent Japanese games will be able to compete, considering that China will continue to produce highly polished animation at this level," Alwei writes.
It's not just the number of animators available in China, though. Apparently, the country does everything bigger than Japan. "If you've been involved in Chinese game projects, you'll know that they use 10x more money and manpower than Japan – the scale is incomparable," writes illustrator and animator Shiba_29. "If you knew the actual numbers, you'd be astonished. It's not the kind of budget that can be recovered with a couple of hundred of million [yen] in launch day revenue."
Considering China has a population of over 1.4 billion, which is over ten times Japan's 124 million, it's no surprise there are just more resources available to Chinese devs.
Finally, Shiba_29 notes that development in China is more "free-spirited" than it is in Japan, and developers come up with "crazy" ideas that "would never get approved in Japan," which they believe adds to why the animations look more expressive.
If you want to check out Arknights: Endfield, you can sign up for the beta right here.
In the meantime, check out the best RPGs you can play right now.
