Phantom Blade Zero Is Already Proving Its Prelaunch Hype Was No Fluke

Just a few hours into launch, Phantom Blade Zero is already a hit game on PC. There was considerable hype behind the game as it was estimated that it had sold 1 million units before launch, and at the time of writing, it has peaked on Steam with 723,876 concurrent players. That’s an impressive start for the game, and considering that it’s also available on PS5, it’s likely that quite a few people are enjoying its mix of soulslike-adjacent action, fight scenes choreographed by movie legend Donnie Yen, and a setting inspired by Chinese folklore.

Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliott gave a breakdown of those preorder sales–when they had reached 850,000 units sold–explaining that 62.5% of Phantom Blade Zero’s pre-launch sales came from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. “These markets–but predominantly China–account for 75.9% of the copies on Steam and about 24.9% on PS5,” Elliott wrote, noting that the early sales had generated $43 million in revenue.

In a launch-day letter, creative director Soulframe Liang thanked the fans for Phantom Blade Zero’s strong start, and the people in his studio, S-Game, for bringing his vision to life. “This is a game of immense scale, made with all the passion in our hearts. It is a gift from a small group of gamers who just happen to be developers, to every gamer who shares our love for gaming,” Liang wrote.

Phantom Blade Zero is off to a strong start, but it doesn’t quite look like it’ll be a repeat of another hit game from the Chinese game development scene, Black Myth: Wukong. That game managed to sell an astonishing 10 million units in just its first three days, and while Phantom Blade Zero probably won’t reach that same figure, it’s still in the top 40 games of 2026 by revenue, according to Elliott–not too shabby considering just how packed 2026 has been with new releases.

If you’re looking to get started, you can check out our Phantom Blade Zero guides hub for many walkthroughs on increasing your power and finding rare items. “S-Game’s Wuxia-inspired combat puts you in the middle of a Chinese action movie,” Richard Wakeling wrote in GameSpot’s Phantom Blade Zero review.