Business / news
Phantom Blade Zero Sells 4 Million Copies in 72 Hours
Beijing studio S-GAME's martial arts action RPG Phantom Blade Zero has moved more than 4 million copies across PS5 and PC within three days of its October 29 launch, with a Steam concurrent peak of about 833,000 players.
The Steam figure places the title among the 15 largest launches in the platform's history, ahead of the all-time concurrent player peaks recorded by Marvel Rivals and Battlefield 6. It marks China's biggest gaming release since Black Myth: Wukong.
The game is built around a wuxia revenge plot. Players control Soul, an elite assassin framed for the murder of his own sect's leader and revived with a tainted heart that leaves him 66 days to clear his name.
Combat leans on wall-running, parries that teleport the player behind enemies and a roster of more than 30 weapons. Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen guided the fight choreography and also appears in the game as the character Mo Yuan.
The rollout was not seamless. Crashes and stuttering dragged early Steam user reviews down to 77% positive before a substantial patch lifted the rating to roughly 90%. Critical reception has been stronger, with an 88 score on Metacritic and a 9/10 from IGN.
The franchise traces back more than 15 years to Rainblood, a homemade RPG Maker project by creator Liang "Soulframe" Qiwei, before evolving into the current AAA production from the Beijing-based studio.