天命人tiān mìng rén

The Destined One

tiān mìng rén, chū fā!天命人，出发！Destined One, let’s go!

天命人, “the Destined One”, is the monkey warrior you play in Black Myth: Wukong. When the game came out in August 2024, its players in China started calling themselves 天命人.

Took off: 2024
Started in: The game Black Myth: Wukong
Today: Fading

What it means

天命 means “fate” or “what heaven has decided”, and 人 means “person”. In the game, the 天命人 is a monkey warrior who looks much like Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, and sets out to find his lost relics.

As a nickname, 天命人 means “a player of Black Myth”. Fans greet each other with it, and game guides address players as 天命人们, “Destined Ones”.

How people use it

It is fading outside gaming. Fans of the game still call themselves 天命人, and the word comes back with each piece of news about the game.

Use it with people who know the game. With anyone else, it needs an explanation.

里昂

你今天怎么请假了？
nǐ jīn tiān zěn me qǐng jià le?
Why did you take the day off today?
我是天命人，今天有大事
wǒ shì tiān mìng rén, jīn tiān yǒu dà shì
I’m a Destined One. Big day today.
哈哈，打到第几回了？
hā hā, dǎ dào dì jǐ huí le?
Ha ha, which chapter are you on?
第二回，已经死了二十次
dì èr huí, yǐ jīng sǐ le èr shí cì
Chapter two. I’ve already died twenty times.

More examples

天命人，今天通关了吗？
tiān mìng rén, jīn tiān tōng guān le ma?
Hey, Destined One, did you finish the game today?
作为天命人，我已经打了三遍了。
zuò wéi tiān mìng rén, wǒ yǐ jīng dǎ le sān biàn le.
As a true Destined One, I’ve played it through three times.

Where it came from

The name was first heard in the game’s first 13-minute video, released in August 2020, where a wolf character says it, according to the Black Myth wiki on Bilibili. The full game came out on the morning of 20 August 2024.

Players called themselves 天命人 from day one, and some joked about using the game’s slogan, “confront destiny”, as their excuse to take the day off. The World of Chinese included the name in its roundup of the memes of 2024.

Local tourism accounts in Shanxi, Chongqing and Zhejiang invited 天命人 to visit the real places that the game’s scenes are based on, as The Paper reported the day after the release.

The original. The hero of the game: a monkey warrior with gray-brown fur, a staff and a gourd at its waist. The Black Myth wiki on Bilibili describes the character. Black Myth wiki on Bilibili (in Chinese)