--- title: "\"Phantom Blade Zero\" Goes Viral, but Chinese AAA Games Remain a Capital Game for Major Studios" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/303690737.md" description: "Following \"Black Myth: Wukong,\" another Chinese AAA game faces market testing. On October 29, S-GAME's" datetime: "2026-10-30T06:55:47.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/303690737.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/303690737.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/303690737.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # "Phantom Blade Zero" Goes Viral, but Chinese AAA Games Remain a Capital Game for Major Studios Following "Black Myth: Wukong," another Chinese AAA game faces market testing. On October 29, the wuxia action game "Phantom Blade Zero," developed by S-GAME (Lingyoufang), was officially released. It topped Steam's global best-seller list on its first day, with peak concurrent players reaching approximately 720,000 by 11:00 PM that night. According to estimates by third-party market analysis firm Alinea Analytics, as of October 28, the game had accumulated approximately 850,000 pre-orders on Steam and PS5 platforms, generating pre-order revenue of about $43 million, equivalent to roughly RMB 287 million. Two years ago, "Black Myth: Wukong" set sales records for Chinese buy-to-play games. Today, the market performance of "Phantom Blade Zero" has once again drawn attention to Tencent, a common investor behind both titles. As early as 2021, Tencent invested in both Game Science and S-GAME. At that time, there were no fully commercially validated success stories for Chinese AAA games. S-GAME's commercial accumulation can be traced back more than a decade. In 2011, Liang Qiwei, founder and CEO of S-GAME, established the company, starting with the indie game series "Rainblood." In 2014, the company launched the mobile game "Phantom Blade," published by NetEase, beginning to generate scaled revenue in the mobile gaming market. Subsequently, the company released "Phantom Blade 2" and "Phantom Blade 3." Liang Qiwei previously disclosed that the original "Phantom Blade" achieved a maximum monthly revenue of over RMB 40 million, while "Phantom Blade 3," launched in 2021, reached a maximum monthly revenue of over RMB 100 million, with a combined R&D and operations team of fewer than 30 people. Mobile game revenue provided S-GAME with the funds to develop large-scale games, while external capital further supported its expansion of R&D investment. S-GAME initially received investments from institutions such as ZhenFund and NetEase Capital. In 2021, Liang Qiwei disclosed that the founding team repurchased shares held by some early investors before bringing in Tencent. On September 30 of that year, S-GAME announced the completion of a strategic financing round worth hundreds of millions of RMB from Tencent, simultaneously unveiling two major titles for PC and console platforms: "Phantom Blade Zero" and the sci-fi themed "Star Guardians." A year prior, the first gameplay demo of "Black Myth: Wukong" was released, attracting widespread attention. In March 2021, Tencent invested in Game Science, acquiring a 5% equity stake; in August of the same year, "Black Myth" released another Unreal Engine 5 gameplay demo. When Tencent's investment was finalized, Chinese buy-to-play games like "Tale of Immortal" and "Dyson Sphere Program" had already achieved million-level sales, and "Naraka: Bladepoint" had achieved commercial success in the PC market. However, large-scale single-player AAA games requiring investments of hundreds of millions still lacked mature commercial benchmarks. In a review before the game's launch, Liang Qiwei revealed that the company later canceled other projects under development to concentrate R&D resources on "Phantom Blade Zero," bringing the total R&D cost of the project to approximately RMB 300–400 million. Large-scale single-player games typically require several years of development before recouping investments concentratedly after official release. High development costs also make AAA game financing more dependent on investors with strong financial capabilities and industrial resources. S-GAME received angel investment of several million RMB from ZhenFund in 2011, Series A financing of several million USD from NetEase Capital in 2013, and equity investment from Yan'an Haoyu in 2018. The latter has capital ties to Hero Interactive Entertainment. NetEase and Hero Interactive Entertainment also sequentially distributed the "Phantom Blade" series of mobile games. Around 2021, NetEase and some early investors exited, the founding team repurchased the relevant shares, and then Tencent invested. Currently, Liang Qiwei directly holds approximately 36.09% of S-GAME's shares, Tianjin Aisi Software Development Partnership holds approximately 35.19%, and Guangxi Tencent Venture Investment Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Tencent, holds approximately 26.34%. Liang Qiwei previously stated that Tencent's investment was premised on non-interference in operations, no binding product cooperation, and no influence on creative work. Similar capital relationships exist at Game Science. At the end of April this year, Game Science completed industrial and commercial changes, with affiliates of Hero Games exiting, increasing Tencent's shareholding from 5% to 24%, making it the sole external shareholder. However, the commercial success of "Black Myth" has not yet driven capital to flood into Chinese AAA games comprehensively. New industry funding still mainly comes from industrial capital like Tencent, overseas platform investors, and some local funds, while most traditional VC/PE institutions remain cautious. According to data from the Game Publishing Committee of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association, domestic console game market revenue in the first half of this year was RMB 961 million, a year-on-year decrease of 7%. After the hype around "Black Myth" subsided, new product supply has not yet fully filled the gap. Nevertheless, major game companies are still laying out plans for this market through internal R&D and external investments. In June 2025, 24 Entertainment's Lin'an Studio, a subsidiary of NetEase, announced the buy-to-play single-player game "Return to Tang." Set against the historical backdrop of the Late Tang Dynasty and Dunhuang, the game is planned for release on PC and console platforms globally. In June this year, "Return to Tang" also released a new story trailer at the Summer Game Fest. Meanwhile, Game Science has announced "Black Myth: Zhong Kui," extending from the "Journey to the West" theme to Chinese folk mythology, continuing to develop large-scale action role-playing works. From external equity investment to internal R&D, multiple capital investment paths have formed for Chinese AAA games. However, given costs of hundreds of millions and development cycles spanning several years, whether the success of a single product can translate into a studio's sustained development capability still requires verification through more works. ### Related Stocks - [TCEHY.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TCEHY.US.md) - [TCTZF.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TCTZF.US.md) - [00700.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/00700.HK.md) - [HTCD.SG](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/HTCD.SG.md) - [09999.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/09999.HK.md) ## Related News & Research - [China's Kung Fu-Inspired AAA Game Phantom Blade Zero Tops Steam Charts on Release](https://longbridge.com/en/news/303695905.md) - [Tencent’s WeChat Pay puts AI sales robot to work in 7-Eleven store](https://longbridge.com/en/news/303898880.md) - [TENCENT's TenPay Global Forges MOU with UnionPay Intl to Explore Cross-border Remittance Co-op](https://longbridge.com/en/news/303922676.md) - [Tencent Cloud, OmniOps partner to provide sovereign AI infrastructure in Saudi Arabia](https://longbridge.com/en/news/303895303.md) - [TENCENT to Roll out New Hunyuan Models Hy4 and Hy4 flash with Visual Understanding Introduced for First Time](https://longbridge.com/en/news/303490527.md) --- > **Disclaimer: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.**