Meet The 3 CMU ETC Alums Behind Global Gaming Sensation “Black Myth: Wukong”

When the Chinese video game “Black Myth: Wukong” was released in August of 2024, it was a worldwide sensation. In the first two weeks after its release, “Black Myth” sold 18 million copies. Bloomberg described it as “one of the fastest starts the global gaming industry has seen.” And behind this massive success? Three alums from Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC).

Liangzheng Luo, Josh Li, and Ziheng Xiao are all graduates of the ETC, with Xiao and Luo receiving their degrees in 2021 and Li in 2022. All three of them currently work at GameScience, the China-based company behind “Black Myth: Wukong.” And all of them developed a passion for game design early on — a passion that eventually led them to the ETC. 

“A top university with a program that matched almost exactly what I had in mind when I was looking for an environment that would support my growth as a game designer. Who could possibly resist that?” said Li.

Xiao and Luo — both designers — became fast friends after working together in the class Building Virtual Worlds (BVW). BVW is one of the four “immersion” courses students take in their first semester where students make rapid prototypes of games together in mere weeks. “[BVW] taught me about collaboration, giving me hands-on experience in working with diverse teams — something that’s been essential in large-scale game development,” Xiao said. 

All three of them learned not just how to work with others, but also how to work towards their individual career goals. “[The ETC] bought me the time I needed to decide how to hone my technical skills,” Li said. 

“It helped me figure out where I really shine in game development,” Luo said. 

And for Xiao, that was level design — the part of game development that deals with the creation of stages, maps, and missions — a focus it turns out he shared. Xiao and Li met during Xiao’s last semester, while Xiao was doing a co-op in China and Li was interning at NetEase Games as a level designer. “I was very into level design, and so was Josh,” Xiao said. “He asked me about it and we became friends.” 

After he graduated in 2021, Xiao started thinking about what he wanted to do with the skills he’d developed at the ETC. “I remember [ETC Professor] Jesse Schell’s final lecture in his class on Game Design, where he said something that really stuck with me, ‘Life is short, and you’ll only have the chance to make a handful of games in your career. So, you need to think carefully about what kind of games you want to dedicate your time and energy to,’” Xiao said. 

When he was given the opportunity to join GameScience as a level designer, Xiao thought of what Schell had said. “Those words resonated with me and helped shape my decision to join the team working on ‘Black Myth: Wukong.’ It’s a project filled with unknowns and challenges, but that’s exactly what excited me,” Xiao said.

And the unknowns were many. The Chinese gaming market is based around mobile games, instead of the console- and PC-based games that dominate the U.S. market. This made the development of a premium console game inherently risky; both “Black Myth’s” budget – reportedly $70 million — and development time – six years — were unheard of at the time. 

The game also draws heavily from traditional Chinese culture — another rarity in a global industry. “Black Myth: Wukong” is a quasi-sequel to “Journey to the West,” a classic 16th-century Chinese novel that weaves together centuries-old Eastern folktales — not unlike stories of King Arthur in the West. 

“Journey to the West is one of the most beloved works of Chinese fiction, even 400 years after it was originally published. Children and young people across East Asia — and in the rest of the world — grow up knowing pieces of these stories from a variety of popular media, long before they ever get a chance to read the book,” ETC Assistant Teaching Professor Jonathan Walton said. In “Black Myth,” players control an anthropomorphic monkey protagonist who aims to revive Sun Wukong, the supernatural monkey king at the center of “Journey.”

“Gaming and film that comes out of Hollywood is done in a way that calculates the risk based on the anticipated audience reaction,” ETC Director Derek Ham said. “When you play that game of math, you tend to play it safe — to go for proven IP [intellectual property] or cultural genericness. And these emerging markets in China or India, they’re asking: ‘Why do we need to have a Western narrative, take a Western approach? Let’s play for our home base first.’”

“And as a fan with an appetite for new stuff, sign me up. I may miss the lore or certain cultural things, but it’s so different and beautifully done. And from an ETC perspective, this shows we give students a toolkit that they can take with them wherever they go and be successful,” Ham said.

For these three alums, getting a chance to apply the skills they honed at the ETC to a project borne out of their own history and culture was — as Li described it — “surreal.” “I’m definitely thrilled to bring the game development skills I honed in the U.S. to projects rooted in traditional Chinese culture,” Luo said. “Nothing beats seeing these transferable skills shine in passion projects.” 

Luo, who joined the company shortly after Xiao and with his support, worked as a combat designer on the game. A few years later, Li began working on “Black Myth” too as a level designer  — something he describes as the result of “pure luck, help and advice from Ziheng and Liangzheng, and technical skills.” 

Their friendship ended up contributing not just to how they got their jobs, but also how they approached their work. “During Black Myth’s design process Ziheng and I discussed a lot of possibilities, and after Josh joined the development team our discussions on level and combat design broadened even more,” Luo said. “Our experience in the ETC really helped us think outside of the box.” 

Still, the game’s immediate and massive success on release came as a shock to them. “Black Myth: Wukong” quickly outpaced the recorded sales of blockbuster titles like “Elden Ring” and “Cyberpunk 2077” in its first few weeks. It was nominated for dozens of awards and won many of them — including Steam Awards’ Game of the Year and Golden Joystick Awards’ Ultimate Game of the Year. 

“I never expected the game to sell this much. No one saw it coming,” Li said. “5 million tops was my biggest fantasy. And honestly when you are so deep in the work, you never feel you are special or better than others. Just lucky and privileged. You just want to do the project justice, nothing more.” 

“Black Myth” is widely considered to be China’s first “AAA” title: a term used in the gaming industry to indicate blockbuster titles with high budgets, long development times, and impressive graphics. As a result, it’s set a new bar for the entire Chinese gaming industry; experts have already begun to speculate that the game’s release marks the beginning of a new era of increased funding and even bigger projects. 

“For those who hope that Chinese games will eventually compete with the biggest titles coming out of North America, Japan, and Europe, Black Myth is groundbreaking — and not just for its incredible success outside of Asia,” Walton said. “When I talk to Chinese game developers, including ETC students and alumni, they express hope that ‘Black Myth’ will lead to more creativity, innovation, and ambition.”

It’s no surprise then that when asked what’s next for the “Black Myth” team, Li said: “Something better. That’s all I can say.” 

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