Phantom Blade Zero finally launched at 10:00 AM on October 29. As of press time, concurrent players on Steam have surpassed 520,000 and are still rising.
The game currently holds a 78% positive rating across 5,000+ reviews on Steam. Around 3,800 of the reviews are in Chinese, with a similar approval rate of about 78%. Positive reviews often praise the excellent animation and performance, and the easy-to-use equipment upgrade system. Negative reviews mainly focus on unchangeable key bindings, slow shader loading and clunky interaction feel — though the first two should be relatively quick to optimize.
Earlier, on August 12, the game topped the Steam Global Top Sellers chart on its pre-sale launch day and reached No. 2 on the PS5 Hong Kong bestseller chart, then topped Steam Global Top Sellers again on October 28.
According to estimates by overseas third-party analytics firm Alinea Analytics, Phantom Blade Zero had already sold 850,000 copies before its official release, putting it in the global Top 40 of this year's newly launched games, with about 62.5% of sales coming from mainland China and the Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan regions. By this calculation, overseas sales amount to roughly 320,000 copies.
Notably, the data only covers Steam and PS5, not the Xbox platform, which has yet to be released. The analysis also noted that if WeGame were included, sales would likely have surpassed 1 million already.
Given the concurrent player count on Steam, actual sales are likely even higher. Over the weekend, both sales and concurrent players are expected to release further.
The surge in sales in the days before launch was likely influenced by the lifting of the media review embargo. The aforementioned analysis report noted that after the media review embargo lifted, game sales increased by at least another 80,000 copies. According to review aggregator Metacritic, Phantom Blade Zero had an average media score of 88 before release — a solid rating. By comparison, Black Myth: Wukong had an average media score of 82 before its release.
Some mainstream outlets were also more positive this time. IGN, which gave Black Myth: Wukong an 8 last time, awarded Phantom Blade Zero a 9 this time, commenting that the game is "an incredibly fluid action game packed with memorable boss battles, compelling combat, and an unmatched sense of style."
Media praise graphic released by S-Game three days before the launch countdown ended
Additionally, IGN China gave a perfect 10/10 score. The review argues: "The quality demonstrated by Phantom Blade Zero gives us ample reason to believe that once the team gets past the climb of accumulating experience, the games it creates with years of accumulated development expertise and a more internationally minded perspective will be absolutely world-class."
Excerpt from IGN China's review article
