Becoming The Destined One: The Commodification of Fantasy in Pilgrimage Tourism of Black Myth: Wukong

This paper examines how the commodification of fantasy in the video game Black Myth: Wukong (BMW), a Chinese action role-playing game released in August 2024, stimulates pilgrimage tourism. The authors argue that emotions such as fantasy are embedded in games during production and should be treated as central to pilgrimage tourism research, extending existing scholarship that has focused largely on film and anime pilgrimage. The core thesis is that game pilgrimage functions as a ritual of identity affirmation, in which players seek to re-enter the game's fantasy world by visiting real-world locations.

The study reports that BMW sold more than 18 million copies worldwide within two weeks and features 36 real-world sites in China, 27 of which are in Shanxi province, a region that experienced a notable tourism surge. The authors propose that developers' use of 3D scanning to render real heritage sites as virtual wonders converts cultural heritage into interactive fantasy, and that this process fuels players' desire to visit those sites physically. They also argue that the strong interactivity of games distinguishes game pilgrimage from film tourism, since players experience the journey through controlled avatars, which can heighten the sense of authenticity that motivates travel.

The proposed methodology combines semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 players who completed the main storyline and visited real-world prototypes, analyzed in NVivo, with participant observation of online fan communities and a "player-as-analyst" approach to examining the game's symbols and gameplay. The paper is presented as a proposal with anticipated findings rather than completed empirical results. Its scope is limited to a single title and a small interview sample, and it concludes that pilgrimage destinations should proactively engage in game production processes.