No ‘feminist propaganda’ as hit Chinese video game grapples with censorship row

The co-publisher of hit Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong this week sent guidelines to foreign streamers urging them against discussing politically touchy topics like Covid-19 or feminism, players said.

Released globally on Tuesday, Black Myth rapidly became one of the most successful Chinese-made games ever, as measured by the number of players on gaming platform Steam.

It combines the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West with cutting-edge graphics as gamers step into the shoes of a Monkey King to do battle with demons in a mythical world.

But in the run up to the game’s release, video streamers reported receiving a document from co-publishers Hero Games warning them to avoid topics including “feminist propaganda” or “politics” when they received a passkey to play the game, an email exchange seen by AFP showed.

Gamers were also warned against any reference to “Covid-19”, “isolation” or “quarantine” – likely a reference to China’s pandemic-era policies that placed millions under arbitrary lockdowns and sparked civil unrest.

They were also told to avoid commenting on “China’s game industry policies, opinions, news, etc”.

Benoit Reinier, a French video game content creator, confirmed to AFP on Wednesday that he had received the guidelines and shared his email exchange with the firm’s representative.

In a YouTube video, Reinier said he would not stream the game on his channel in response to the guidelines, he described as “censorship”.

“I have never seen something so shameful,” he said in the video.

“It is very clearly a document which explains to us that we must censor ourselves and we must not talk about subjects considered negative such as politics.”

Neither Hero Games nor the game’s developer Game Science