Phantom Blade Zero is on track for a hit launch

Like a lot of other action game sickos in the West, I’ve been following Phantom Blade Zero since its appearance in a PlayStation Showcase back in May 2023. While that was my first exposure, the so-called Kung Fu punk action game, mixing up steampunk machinery, body modifications, and fast-AF combat, has been in the pipeline for almost a decade – and in full-scale development since 2022.

The developer and publisher is Beijing-based S-Game, but Sony’s been heavily involved, too, reportedly via PlayStation’s China Hero Project, which gives small- and mid-sized developers resources to make it globally.

Phantom Blade Zero launches on PS5 and Steam on October 29. If the Steam pre-release numbers are anything to go by, which they often are – see our pre-launch posts this year about Crimson Desert and Black Flag Resynced – Phantom Blade Zero is on track to hit it big time – if it sticks the landing.

Since its Steam pre-order button appeared a week ago, Phantom Blade Zero has sold 300K copies on Steam and generated $14.5M in revenue, with 10 bloody weeks left until it releases.

Phantom Blade Zero also just passed 1.6M Steam wishlists, comfortably the most of any game coming out this year. Our estimates showed it had some big wishlist jumps after its Game Awards trailer, its inclusion in the June State of Play, and – of course – its rad dedicated State of Play deep dive a couple of days ago.

PlayStation is pushing this one hard, with a dedicated 20-minute State of Play deep dive, write-ups on the PlayStation Blog, and some PlayStation-peripheral features that are usually reserved for first-party games, like haptics, adaptive triggers, and 3D audio.

In other words, Phantom Blade Zero is getting the full first-party marketing treatment, and for good reason (more on that later!)

Let’s get the obvious comparison out of the way. This one is ticking a lot of the same boxes as Black Myth: Wukong. Phantom Blade Zero looks big-budget, bloody awesome looking, and is a culturally rooted Chinese action game that’s resonating with folks across the East and West alike.

I had a chat with China gaming consultant Daniel Camilo earlier, and he reckons hype in China is high right now. In Dan’s words (can I call you Dan? I’m calling you Dan...), it’s “nowhere near what it was like for Black Myth: Wukong, but considerably higher than what we saw before the launch of Wuchang.”

His boots-on-the-ground read is that Wukong was a once-in-a-generation cultural movement that basically everyone in China was exposed to, whereas Phantom Blade Zero is “much more a ‘gamers’ thing’, but in a big way.” Obviously, that could snowball, though.

For example, there’s a wave of local brands already announcing branding partnerships and licensing deals around Phantom Blade Zero, mostly merchandise and accessories for now, but Dan expects that to expand to food-and-drink stuff (usually a tell of a big Chinese game launch) likely to follow at release.

Phantom Blade Zero also – unlike most Western games without a local partner – has the official go-ahead to launch in China:

‘’Phantom Blade Zero has a publishing license for Mainland China and will release in the country simultaneously with the rest of the world, so that will allow S Game and all its partners to visibly boost the marketing beyond what most games who don’t have a license usually do in China,’’ Daniel told me.

‘’We’ll see a lot more IRL [in-real-life] offline promotional activities and exposure, and not just the usual online marketing blitz other premium games launch to here, generally.’’

Phantom Blade Zero leans hard into the home-market appeal (there’s that hometown hero effect we’ve covered here a bunch). Phantom Blade Zero’s action is heavily based around authentic Chinese martial arts (with Hong Kong action legend Donnie Yen being a mo-cap performer and consultant – as well as consulting from Shaolin and other traditional schools).

There’s also a bunch of cool Chinese cultural heritage in the game, including lion dances, Beijing opera, nuo masks, imperial ceremony, ink-wash art, and all that neat stuff. It’s a game that clearly will evoke a similar kind of national pride that Black Myth Wukong did.

Our estimates show that of Phantom Blade Zero’s 1.6M wishlists:

• 29% are in China

• 17% in the US

• And 5% from Japan

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but wishlists for AAA and AA are just bookmarks for discounts and don’t show purchase intent at launch. Still, the geographic breakdown is a decent proxy for interest – and China is, indeed, damn interested.

Of course, it’s ticking all the right boxes for landing well in China. Phantom Blade Zero has a Chinese dub, and is regionally priced well for China and surrounding countries. It costs $60 in the US, but the equivalent of:

• $39.84 in China (-33.6% of the U.S. price)

• $41.81 in Hong Kong (-30.3%)

• $43.25 in Taiwan (-27.9%)

• And it’s also cheaper in a lot of emerging markets (but for some reason, it’s the equivalent of $80.90 in Poland…)

Looking at our launch-aligned Steam copies sold estimates, we can see that Phantom Blade Zero had sold around 286K copies 70 days before launch (yesterday). It’s about 6.4x more than what Wuchang: Fallen Feathers had sold on Steam 70 days before its launch (45Kish), and about 73% of Black Myth: Wukong’s frankly mental 393Kish.

So yeah, Wukong’s curve was steeper. Its pre-order button was activated late, but it accelerated faster and overtook Phantom Blade Zero in the last few days of the above window, and it went on to be a generational phenomenon (17M copies on Steam, over half in China, as per our estimates).

While Phantom Blade Zero isn’t currently tracking to be the next Wukong, it’s well ahead of Wuchang – not confusing at all, I know! But tracking in the same ballpark as Black Myth: Wukong is hell of a position to be in.

That brings us on to our next point, and it’s an obvious one some of us in-the-weeds data types can forget.

Wuchang is the cautionary tale here. It had strong initial interest and seemed poised to capture some of that Black Myth-like glory, then quality and optimisation problems capped it. So S-Game obviously knows the stakes of dropping the ball, having already delayed Phantom Blade Zero by 50 days (from September 9 to October 29 ) for polish and to avoid a chunky post-launch patch.

There are risks, though. I’d say the minimum specs on PC are a touch aggressive for China and could cap some adoption. The minimum requirement of a GTX 1660 cuts off a chunky cohort of Steam users still on 1060s, 1650s, and even mobile 2060 laptops.

We’ve been looking at a lot of China Steam user reviews lately, and a combo of soft image clarity and low framerates is a classic trigger for those pesky ‘’bad optimisation!’’ bombs.

Chinese players who can’t express their frustration on forums and Discord servers due to the Great Firewall will instead voice their concerns via user reviews. While Steam shows local reviews to players, much of Phantom Blade Zero’s true success rides on China. So this might be a bit of an issue.

A smaller, but vocally loud friction point on console is the ‘’no disc, no buy’’ movement. It’s a minor issue relative to the Steam optismisation, but one worth mentioning all the same.

We nerds who have been reading all of Sony’s financials have noticed that the messaging has moved away from China and PC and towards other stuff. Yet, backing a game like Phantom Blade Zero, reportedly a part of the China Hero Project and made by a Beijing dev, is a way for PlayStation to keep one foot in the Steam and therefore China market (for single-player, anyways) without taking away from its core value proposition (the box, the ecosystem).

Beyond maximising revenue per user, China is a growth vector in today’s AAA and AA games ecosystem. So Sony is sort of having it both ways here, depending on its agreement with S-Game.

But in the end, Phantom Blade Zero is very much on track to be a massive hit. If it’s as amazing as it looks (important!), it’ll be a sense of national pride in China. And in the West, it’ll be associated with PlayStation.

As for me, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this one. Hit subscribe below to see how it tracks at launch!

• We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up.

• We’re heading to gamescom! Fancy a chat about games, want to hear what Alinea’s been up to, or anything else games-related? Give us a shout, and we’ll sort a coffee or a Kölsch.

Can almost taste that Kölsch already!

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]