This August brought the launch of the most anticipated Chinese video game, possibly ever. The first “AAA” game released by a Chinese studio, “Black Myth: Wukong” smashed records on its debut, racking up 18 million sales and reaching a high of over 2 million concurrent players on Steam.

The game’s success has led to a lot of conversations within China’s gaming industry, but most of these have focused on issues like AAA development or abstract concepts like “cultural exports.” That misses what I think is the most important takeaway from the game’s launch: Its embrace of the “auteur” approach to game development.

As in film, this auteur quality refers to the distinctive style and thinking at the heart of a game. Certain video games inevitably bring to mind the person who designed them. This approach is perhaps exemplified by the Japanese gaming industry, which features well-known, highly idiosyncratic titles like Hideo Kojima’s “Metal Gear” series, Hidetaka Miyazaki’s “Dark Souls,” and Yoko Taro’s “Nier” series. These are all products of game designers with single-minded visions; their games serve as a vehicle for their creators’ ideas.

The producer of “Black Myth,” Feng Ji, adopted a similar approach. As the brains behind the game — and a co-founder of its developer Game Science — Feng poured his thoughts on “Journey to the West” and its associated works into the game with relatively little concern for practical commercial pressures. In this context, we can clearly see something in “Black Myth” and its promotional material that is missing from other Chinese games — a strong sense of idealism. The game’s character designs, graphics, and world-building, even its official website, all demonstrate a drive for quality regardless of cost.

The gameplay also reflects Feng’s idiosyncratic take on “Journey to the West.” Players take on the role of the “Destined One,” a character based on Sun Wukong. But the game also delicately depicts less well-known figures from the novel in great detail, both empathizing with them and revealing their inner worlds.

Take for example the Whiteclad Noble, who appears in the game’s first chapter. In the “Journey to the West” novel, this demon is only mentioned in one line and is easily killed by Sun Wukong. In the game, he is a major boss. It’s clear that “Black Myth” wanted to use the grammar of video games to magnify less important characters and make them more well-rounded and appealing.

The auteur quality of “Black Myth” is exactly what Chinese video games are lacking at this stage. The domestic game industry’s understanding of video games has largely been simplified into a kind of technical determinism, a tendency that resurfaced in all the discussions of “Black Myth” as a AAA game. A side effect of this is a myopic focus on style over substance. If China really wants to realize its ambition of exporting its game culture overseas, it needs not just to incorporate Chinese ideas, but also to support free-thinking game designers as they create original works.

Of course, creating these works is no simple matter, especially in the AAA format, since it runs directly against the current standardized game production model. AAA game developers in Europe and the United States tend to avoid the auteur model. Their team-based approach has enabled these games to excel in technical aspects, creating epic worldviews and addictive gameplay. However, their production mechanism focuses on replicability, restricts the emergence of auteurs, and makes it difficult for players to feel the personal style of a single designer, an approach that has fueled demand for auteur-led small indie games.

I hope that one result of the success of “Black Myth” will be increased awareness of the importance and value of auteurs. It’s not all about graphics: The real impact of the game will be measured in whether it frees Chinese game designers to pursue their ambitions.

Translator: David Ball; editor: Wu Haiyun; portrait artist: Wang Zhenhao.

(Header image: A still from Black Myth: Wukong. From Black Myth’s website)