Artificial intelligence and video gaming company CreateAI is developing an ambitious AAA video game based on the works of acclaimed Hong Kong martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, better known as Jin Yong. The project, titled Heroes of Jin Yong, is set to become one of China’s largest-scale open-world role-playing games (RPGs).
Bringing Jin Yong’s world to life
CreateAI, formerly an autonomous vehicle firm known as TuSimple, holds the global rights to adapt Cha’s novels into an open-world RPG for PC and Sony’s PlayStation 5. Speaking at the recent ChinaJoy 2025 trade show in Shanghai, company president and CEO Lu Cheng described the undertaking as a “huge software engineering project” with the greatest challenge being the balance between visual quality, engaging combat mechanics, and managing vast amounts of digital resources.
The game will feature characters spanning 300 years of history and recreate more than 120 iconic scenes from Cha’s 15 martial arts novels. Players will explore an expansive 960-square-kilometre world filled with side stories, varied gameplay, and an immersive wuxia experience. This virtual environment is expected to be over ten times larger than popular open-world titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Grand Theft Auto V.
The scale and ambition of Heroes of Jin Yong reflect the growing determination among Chinese game developers to replicate the global success of action RPG Black Myth: Wukong, which was released in August last year and quickly gained worldwide acclaim. CreateAI expects to invest hundreds of millions of yuan in the game’s development.
Large-scale production and advanced technology
More than 200 in-house developers and around 200 contractors, including staff from leading studios in Japan and Poland, are currently working on the project. The company recently reduced its headcount by about 100 employees at its Guangzhou subsidiary, but has expanded in other areas. Last week, it opened a 2,000-square-metre digital motion-capture facility in Beijing’s Huairou district, described as Asia’s largest and most advanced. The centre is equipped with 130 Vicon VK26 optical cameras for high-precision production in AAA games, films, and animation.
Lu said Heroes of Jin Yong is CreateAI’s largest project since the company rebranded and shifted its focus to gaming and AI in 2024. TuSimple went public on Nasdaq in 2021 but delisted in January 2024 following financial losses, internal disputes, and rising US-China tensions. The company plans to release a “playable demo” and first trailer for the game by the end of this year, with an “initial version” targeted for late 2026 and full launch scheduled for 2028.
Co-founder Chen Mo played a key role in securing the rights for the adaptation. He had initially obtained the licence to Cha’s Xiao Ao Jiang Hu (The Smiling, Proud Wanderer) four years ago for an animated film project. Chen compared the importance of Heroes of Jin Yong to CreateAI with the role Black Myth: Wukong played for Game Science. “I was born for this product,” he wrote in a letter to shareholders during the company’s rebranding.
Building a wider gaming and AI portfolio
Lu, a long-time fan of Cha’s novels who grew up in the United States, credits early exposure to film adaptations of Cha’s works with helping him learn Mandarin. While Heroes of Jin Yong remains the company’s flagship project, CreateAI is also pursuing other ventures to generate revenue before the game’s commercial release.
In December, the company launched Animon.AI, which Lu described as the world’s first AI video-generation platform for anime. He believes AI could handle a significant portion of game development within the next few years. At ChinaJoy, CreateAI also announced plans to release an AI-powered mobile game, Breath of You, and launch “ACG Fans”, an online community for anime, comics, and games enthusiasts, by the end of 2025.
Lu expects Animon.AI and mobile gaming ventures to become profitable in early 2026, with other company products reaching maturity in 2027. Despite these plans, CreateAI reported a net loss of US$354 million in 2024, compared with US$281 million in 2023.
