The Legend of Sword and Fairy

From Wuxia to Cultivation Games: Reimagining Chinese Cosmology in Digital Space

This paper by Morgan Yu Hao examines the emergence of cultivation games, a rapidly growing Chinese genre in which players pursue spiritual immortality through martial and mystical practices, and traces its lineage from the earlier wuxia tradition.

• Cultivation games are a rapidly growing Chinese genre in which players pursue spiritual immortality through martial and mystical practices, and the paper argues they embed Daoist cosmology, alchemy, and epistemology into core gameplay rather than using Chinese culture merely as backdrop.
• Author Morgan Yu Hao frames this shift through Yuk Hui's concept of cosmotechnics, positioning cultivation games as a potential fusion of cosmic and moral orders through technical activity and as a challenge to Western-centric perspectives in game studies.
• The paper traces a lineage from the 1990s wuxia "Three Swords" titles (Xuan-Yuan Sword, Chinese Paladin, Jian Xia Qing Yuan) through later East Asian MMORPGs, citing earlier scholarship that claimed wuxia games held more than half of the Chinese market.