Black Myth: Wukong has some bonkers streamer guidelines about not using the game to spread 'feminist propaganda' or discuss anything about China

Black Myth: Wukong releases tomorrow and is really rather good. As PCG's Tyler Colp said on his way to awarding it a handsome 87% in our review, «these animals may not have thumbs, but they sure have hands.»

The game has run into further controversy, however, over an email sent from its marketing team to content creators planning to cover the game at launch. Co-publisher Hero Games is distributing Steam keys to these individuals, which comes with a link to a Google document (verified by both IGN and Forbes) containing some rather wild conditions for coverage.

The text consists of lists of «dos» and «dont's», with the former being simply «enjoy the game» before we get to the more questionable stuff. This includes some standard requirements that you'd get with almost any pre-release code, such as not insulting other streamers, offensive language and humour.

Then it veers off completely, saying that streamers playing Black Myth: Wukong must not include «nudity, feminist propaganda, fetishization, and other content that instigates negative discourse.» This will immediately set off alarm bells, because the major controversy over this game has been about a history of sexist remarks from developer GameScience's leaders, outlined in an IGN report last year. The studio has gone bunker mode about these during the release period, and such attitudes don't appear to permeate the game, but taking aim at «feminist propaganda» is a terrible look.

Things don't get better, as the guidelines move onto subjects that are sensitive within China, the home country of Game Science and Hero Games. Streamers are told not to use «trigger words such as 'quarantine' or 'isolation' or 'COVID-19'», a requirement that seems to relate to various theories about the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak. Why any streamers would be doing that in the first place is a mystery, but there you are. 

Finally, it gets explicit: «Do NOT discuss content related to China's game industry policies, opinions, news, etc.»