Phantom Blade Zero Launches Strong on Steam, Second Only to Counter-Strike 2 in Peak Players

Phantom Blade Zero has made an impressive debut on Steam, quickly climbing to the top of the best-selling games chart and hitting a peak concurrent player count of 448,000 within just a few hours of release. This puts it ahead of Steam mainstays like PUBG and Dota 2 in terms of peak players, and behind only Counter-Strike 2 as the most-played game on Valve's platform. However, the actual peak player count is likely higher since the game is also available on PS5, though Sony does not disclose player numbers.

By revenue, Phantom Blade Zero is also the top-selling game on Steam, surpassing Activision's Modern Warfare 4, Aion 2, and Probably Stolen, a Cyberpunk shopkeeper sim that's going viral.

The early success is not entirely unexpected. Earlier this week, estimates suggested that Phantom Blade Zero had sold over 1 million copies before launch across Steam, PS5, and Tencent's WeGame (an online PC storefront in China). Nearly two-thirds of prelaunch sales came from China, Taiwan, and 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 game's launch, creative director and S-Game CEO Soulframe Liang penned a heartfelt letter thanking fans. In it, he reflected on 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, leading them to cancel other projects and focus on Phantom Blade while expanding the scale of production. They traveled across China to 3D scan villages, captured thousands of hours of motion capture, and visited Shaolin temples and sword masters to learn martial arts.

Soulframe also highlighted a few young and hungry developers on the team, such as art director Michael Chang, who drew concepts for every single character and environment. "After years of development, I feel that technology and experience have become the baseline, almost a given at this point," he continued. "What I find myself paying more attention to now is the mindset of the people behind the game. Beyond skill and experience, is there a certain madness, a certain obsession?"

Soulframe explained that over time, the team started to feel like wuxia characters themselves, fighting battles each day to make the best game possible. "Over the past few years, one thing I often said to the team was, 'Today, I have a suffocating decision to announce,'" he explained. "That usually meant taking apart something everyone had already carefully built and polished, then rebuilding it, or even abandoning it altogether.

"It meant a great deal of rework, and sometimes letting go of content that had already taken an enormous amount of time and effort. I am deeply grateful to the team for their understanding and support. We did it. We have poured all our thought and creativity into this game."

He finished the post by thanking players who followed the game's journey from scrappy indie game to topping the Steam charts on its first day out.

IGN's Phantom Blade Zero review returned a 9/10. We said: "Phantom Blade Zero is an unbelievably smooth action game filled with memorable boss fights, compelling combat, and limitless swagger."