Phantom Blade Zero Dominates Steam Charts at Launch, Hitting 448K Players
The wuxia action game Phantom Blade Zero is a smash hit on Steam just hours after its release, according to IGN. The title rocketed to the top of the platform's best-selling games list by revenue and posted a massive peak concurrent player count of 448,000.
On the most-played games chart, it currently sits behind only Counter-Strike 2, beating out heavyweights like PUBG and Dota 2. IGN notes the total player base is likely even higher, as the game is also available on PS5, where Sony does not share public player numbers.
Its commercial success was already hinted at pre-launch. IGN reports the game had sold over a million copies across PC, PS5, and China's WeGame platform before it even went live, with nearly two-thirds of those sales coming from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
To mark the launch, creative director Soulframe Liang posted a heartfelt letter. He recounted the game's origins as a student project and said the team cancelled other projects to focus on Phantom Blade Zero after a positive reaction to an early trailer. The development involved extensive travel across China for 3D scanning and motion capture work.
Liang thanked his team for enduring difficult decisions that led to scrapping polished content, saying they poured all their creativity into the final product.
