We've FOUND The REAL Historical Sites in Black Myth Zhong Kui

When Black Myth Wukong came out in 2024, it took the world by storm. Not only did the game sell 10 million copies in its first three days, but there was also intense interest from non-gamers into the background story and real culture and historical locations in China that were used as settings for the game. Most of the settings in the game were in Shanxi province, and we did a video on it at the time comparing the real life and in-game versions. Some are exactly the same, some are more like inspired by a real place, but don't follow the design exactly. But now we have a new Black Myth game in the pipeline, Black Myth Zhongkui. This is based on the story of the Chinese Taoist deity Zhongkui, a vanquisher of ghosts who supposedly had 80,000 demons at his disposal. This isn't the first time he's been featured in a game too, he appeared as a character in the game Smite in 2013. But what I want to talk about in this video isn't the character himself, Jared already did a video that tells you the whole story of Zhongkui from Chinese history, it looks like this, I will put it on the end screen of this video for you to check out. He applied for a government post, he was the best candidate in the country, not one of the best, THE best, and they turned him down over what he looked like, and it humiliated him so badly that he killed himself on the palace steps in front of the emperor who did it, and that's not the twist, that's the opening act. But what I actually want to talk about is historical locations that will be featured in the game, because a new gameplay video was released on August 20th on Black Myth's official YouTube channel, and people are already noticing a couple of locations in Shanxi province of China that appear to be in the game. So this is the real locations of Black Myth Zhongkui, part one. So Game Science released a 15 minute gameplay demo of Black Myth Zhongkui, and in it we see some cutscenes, some fight scenes that are actual gameplay, this weird band of skeletons, and Zhongkui in women's makeup, I really don't know what's going on with this. But hidden in there were two sections where you see some buildings based on real life places. The first one is this, you see the square pagoda with the little arch doorway in the background? Well, it seems that this is based on the Zhongli Zhuang Balong Si Ta, or the Eight Dragon Temple Pagoda of Zhongli Village in Shanxi province. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the third emperor, Emperor Zhen Zong, was in the area offering sacrifices at the Fen River nearby. He passed by this area and saw the auspicious image of eight dragons coming down from the sky and thus built a temple here. Okay, I realise that was actually nine dragons, it's AI guys, I didn't want to pay for another generation to delete one. And why are they all moving in unison? It's like a dragon aerial display team or something. Anyway, construction on the pagoda began in the year 1012 AD. It's made of brick with imitation brick dou gong under each floor. Dou gong is this structure that you see on this wooden pagoda, also in Shanxi province, that flexes slightly and absorbs shocks, making buildings like this resistant to earthquakes. Well, this Eight Dragon Pagoda has a brick imitation of that on each floor. Probably won't help with earthquakes, but it looks cool. The pagoda is 78 feet or 23.9 meters tall and has seven floors. The sixth and seventh floors seem to have been destroyed at some point and were reconstructed in the Ming and Qing dynasties. All right, let's move on to the next building that people have recognised in the gameplay video. So the next historical building that appears to be in Black Myth Zhong Kui is this Ling Shi Hou Tu Miao. And you can see the distinctive shape of the roof in this small temple building in the game. So this Ling Shi Hou Tu Miao temple complex was built in around 500 AD, but then it was destroyed by an earthquake, then rebuilt in the Yuan dynasty, so that would be the 1300s, and then renovated or reconstructed again in the Ming dynasty around the year 1440. The specific part of this temple complex that seems to be featured in the game is what they call the offering hall. This features actual wooden dou gong, not brick this time, and an octagon-shaped ceiling. Hey, maybe they could have MMA fights in here. And here is a better view of the inside with the octagon above and the floor below. That's where you'd put the cage fighting arena. Okay, just kidding. Now obviously for the game version, if it is this temple, they have moved it so it's no longer in a courtyard, but instead on a thin rock ledge in the middle of a cliff. But the way the roof sticks out at the sides is very recognisable. But actually, Game Science has not yet released a list of locations and has not confirmed that either of these sites has been scanned as a reference site. So the idea that these are buildings in the game comes from speculation by gamers and the Chinese media. However, I think the likeness is striking and the fact that these two buildings are in Shanxi province follows in the footsteps of the first game that also used many locations in Shanxi province. So why does Game Science seem to favour Shanxi as the backdrop for the world of their video games? Well, Shanxi has over 28,000 historic buildings and 531 major historical and cultural sites protected at the national level. You can see buildings from the Tang dynasty and then every dynasty after that all the way up to the Qing dynasty. But these buildings are not always neat and pristine like the Forbidden City in Beijing. Many of them are in disrepair or have signs of rebuilding over the centuries that they've been around which fits into the rugged world of the Black Myth games. Now the game is expected to come out in 2028 and at that time there will probably be a list of all the historic sites in the game and we'll come out with a part two of this video once we know all the details. In our video on the historic sites in Black Myth Wukong we covered like seven or eight different places each with an interesting story. So look forward to that and if you want to support our work do consider becoming a member for $4.99 a month, okay? It's hard to get lots of views on videos about traditional Chinese cultural stuff on YouTube so we really do appreciate your support. And as a thank you, you do get access to some of our videos the ones we upload a bit earlier. You can still subscribe for free and see all of our videos when they're publicly released with the subscribe button below as well. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.