Following Black Myth: Wukong’s Success, Nintendo Fans Laugh as Switch Gets Wukong Sun: Black Legend
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Black Myth: Wukong arrived in 2024 to incredible success and has seemingly spawned some copycats as a result, with Nintendo Switch fans laughing as Wukong Sun: Black Legend hits the platform this week.
Gamers online have called out the $7.99 Wukong Sun: Black Legend as a fairly blatant rip-off of Black Myth: Wukong, which isn’t on Nintendo Switch itself. Not only is the name incredibly similar, but the promotional image could easily be mistaken for that of the actual game.
The similarities practically end there, however, as Wukong Sun: Black Legend is a side-scrolling platformer as opposed to Black Myth: Wukong’s third-person action. It also requires a meagre 338 megabytes of storage space according to the Nintendo eShop page.
It’s description doesn’t allude to this seemingly more limited experience, promising “a chaotic world teeming with powerful monsters,” “supercharged abilities and crazy fighting skills,” and “captivating visuals with unforgettable storytelling.”
“Seriously, this is not even subtle,” one ResetEra user wrote of the similarities between Wukong Sun: Black Legend and Black Myth: Wukong. “Not even trying,” wrote another. “Yeah, this seems like the kind of shovelware cashgrab someone would release,” said a third.
Black Myth: Wukong is based on classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, so Wukong Sun: Black Legend could technically also be based on this source material, but it’s not the first time such an incident has occurred.
A game which looked incredibly similar to PlayStation mega hit The Last of Us, for example, was also released on (and then pulled from) the Nintendo eShop last year. Fans have called out digital storefronts for seemingly have little to no quality control, with PlayStation itself facing a similar issue with a Grand Theft Auto 6 parody earlier in December.
Developers have felt the burden of this too, with Unpacking creative director Wren Brier calling out Nintendo for allowing copycats of their game on the eShop. As reported by Eurogamer, Brier called games such as Unpacking: Deluxe Edition or Unpacking: Chill Music Pack “egregious scams,” as they are in no way linked to their own game.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.