The Digital Representation of Chinese Temples and Caves in Black Myth: Wukong

This thesis focuses on Black Myth: Wukong, a Chinese AAA video game, and how it uses digital means to reconstruct and transform the traditional heritage of temples and cave, as well as how this process reflects the connections and contradictions between authenticity, playability, and cultural interaction. Although Black Myth: Wukong has begun to be regarded as a medium for the dissemination of ancient Chinese culture, academic research on its architectural elements has not yet been systematized. This thesis explores the dual nature of video games like Black Myth: Wukong as both effective mediators for the transmission of cultural heritage and as platforms for the reinterpretation of cultural heritage. The study follows an interdisciplinary approach that brings together the input of religious studies, game studies and digital heritage studies. The theoretical basis is formed by Mircea Eliade theory of sacred space, Nitsche model of game space, and notions of the archaeological and...Show moreThis thesis focuses on Black Myth: Wukong, a Chinese AAA video game, and how it uses digital means to reconstruct and transform the traditional heritage of temples and cave, as well as how this process reflects the connections and contradictions between authenticity, playability, and cultural interaction. Although Black Myth: Wukong has begun to be regarded as a medium for the dissemination of ancient Chinese culture, academic research on its architectural elements has not yet been systematized. This thesis explores the dual nature of video games like Black Myth: Wukong as both effective mediators for the transmission of cultural heritage and as platforms for the reinterpretation of cultural heritage. The study follows an interdisciplinary approach that brings together the input of religious studies, game studies and digital heritage studies. The theoretical basis is formed by Mircea Eliade theory of sacred space, Nitsche model of game space, and notions of the archaeological and architectonical semiotics. Methodologically, the approach of the work consists of scrutinizing the in-game environments through visual and lexical examination, with the significant help of literature on comparative research of historical sites in real world, supplemented by archaeological reports. Two sample cases Guanyin Zen Courtyard and Yellow Wind Ridge are selected to further investigate them. It is also examined how the audience receives it by analysing Steam reviews and YouTube video statistics, the latter with the help of Google API. These results show that Black Myth: Wukong resorts heavily to actual structural features, including dougong, axial plans, and cave sculptures, but adjusts them to the needs of the storytelling plane and battle systems. guanyin zen courtyard depicts how temple structures are simplified and converted into useful battleground, and the yellow wind ridge is an example of decollage of different cultural materials into a surrealistic wilderness. These illustrations show that authenticity in games is not a matter of archaeological presence but a pocket of a cultural ambience that creates a sense of familiarity without being truth similar to the past. The audience analysis also brings to the fore the two ways in which heritage is received in digital games. The reviews on Steam are largely characterised by the gameplay mechanic as the main criteria of assessment of the players. According to the information on YouTube, almost twenty percent of most presented videos attract over ten thousand views, and videos about mythological and cultural background are the most popular ones. This implies that the type of people complementary to the players- those who interact most with heritage as an interactive environment- have an attraction to the story and culture of heritage. The thesis indicates what is possible about the use of video games as mediums to reproduce digital heritage, and the constraints involved. On the one hand, games give the cultural symbols new energy and make it possible to communicate cross- culturally through the interactive and total immersion experience. On the one hand, they will risk to turn heritage into visual spectacle or exoticized picture detaching symbols of their temporal and religious contexts. The thesis is also aware of its limitations, such as the limited amount of sources used and no interviews with any players whatsoever. Finally, this thesis will leave a mark on the development of the scholarship exploring the preservation of sacred architectural spaces in digital contexts because it reveals where the dominant means of preserving these spaces to date, video games, replicate but also transfigure the sacred spaces. Black Myth: Wukong illustrates that digital heritage is not nearly as much about restoring anything accurately as about balancing between maintaining authenticity, creative work, and playability. In this negotiation lies the practice of games linking academic research, cultural heritage and the experience of the general population, with useful implications in the future of digital heritage in education, tourism and the cross cultural exchange.Show less

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The Digital Representation of Chinese Temples and Caves in Black Myth: Wukong