Game News

Phantom Blade Zero's Steam launch: 431,541 players or 723,876, depending on when you looked

Phantom Blade Zero, the wuxia action game from Chinese studio S-Game, launched on 29 October on PS5 and PC and quickly became one of the most-played games on Steam.

Eurogamer reported a peak of 431,541 concurrent Steam players, via SteamDB, hours after release. By that afternoon, GameSpot said it had peaked at 723,876.

“Just a few hours into launch, Phantom Blade Zero is already a hit game on PC.” — GameSpot

The day before launch, Japan's Automaton reported estimates from Alinea Analytics: about 850,000 digital pre-orders, 62.5% of them from China, with Steam making up 73.8% of digital sales and PS5 26.2%, and around $43 million in revenue. Alinea expects lifetime sales to pass 1 million once China's WeGame store is included. GameSpot cited the same analyst and noted fight scenes choreographed by Donnie Yen. A week earlier, Eurogamer had reported it was outselling Gears of War: E-Day and Control Resonant on Steam before release.

How each outlet framed it

• Eurogamer — “more Chinese success”: another big Chinese action game breaking through on Steam.
• GameSpot — the hype holding up, with a higher peak and the Donnie Yen choreography.
• Automaton — who is buying: China's share and the Steam/PS5 split.

Where the numbers differ: the two peak figures come from different times on launch day. The sales numbers are analyst estimates; S-Game has not published its own.