It’s only been out a few hours, but Phantom Blade Zero is already a big hit on Steam, topping the best-selling games chart, and reaching a huge peak concurrent player count of 448,000.
Phantom Blade Zero is ahead of eternal Steam big hitters PUBG and Dota 2 by peak concurrent players, and behind only Counter-Strike 2 as the most-played game on Valve's platform. But it's worth noting that the total peak player count will be even higher, given Phantom Blade Zero is also out on PS5 (Sony does not make player numbers public).
It's also the best-selling game on Steam by revenue, ahead of Activision Modern Warfare 4, Aion 2, and Probably Stolen, a Cyberpunk shopkeeper sim that's going viral.
The early success shouldn't come as a huge surprise. This week, it was estimated that Phantom Blade Zero had sold over 1 million copies before launch, across launch platforms Steam and PS5, and Tencent’s WeGame (an online PC storefront in China). Nearly two thirds of total prelaunch sales were from China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong. Phantom Blade Zero is a wuxia action game developed by Chinese studio S-Game, and features martial arts movie star Donnie Yen.
Alongside the launch of the game, creative director and S-Game CEO, Soulframe Liang, penned a heartfelt letter thanking fans. In it, he talked about the game’s humble beginnings — a version of the world he created as a student in RPG Maker called Rainblood: Town of Death.
“Back then, I had no idea where my life or career would lead,” he said. “Making games had simply been a source of comfort while I studied abroad, but before I knew it, it had become one of the most important parts of my life.
“More than three years ago, when we brought our first, still rather rough Phantom Blade Zero trailer to a PlayStation showcase, we probably looked like a new studio being a little too bold, putting an unfinished game out for the whole world to judge. Phantom Blade was simply another original IP, its world, characters and story entirely unfamiliar to people.”
He went on to explain how the reaction to the trailer spurred the team on, and they cancelled other projects to focus on Phantom Blade while expanding the scale of production. They travelled across China to 3D scan villages, captured thousands of hours of motion capture, and went to Shaolin temples and sword masters to learn martial arts.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/phantom-blade-zero-beats-modern-warfare-4-steam-top-selling
