Phantom Blade Zero Launches to About 431,000 Steam Players: Critics Love It, Players Are Less Sure

Phantom Blade Zero is out, and it launched big. The wuxia action game from Chinese studio S-GAME peaked at about 431,000 players at the same time on Steam, briefly became Steam's second most played game behind only Counter-Strike 2, and topped Steam's global best-sellers chart. Critics love it. Players are a little less sure. Here's how the launch went.

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What is Phantom Blade Zero?

It's a wuxia action RPG built in Unreal Engine 5 by S-GAME. You play as Soul, a warrior with only 66 days left to live, fighting off assassins and uncovering a world-ending conspiracy.

The launch in numbers

• Peak players on Steam: about 431,000 at the same time, according to SteamDB figures reported by several outlets (some report up to about 434,000). It passed 400,000 within its first hour.
• Steam ranking: at its peak it was the #2 most played game on Steam, behind only Counter-Strike 2, and it topped Steam's global top sellers chart.
• Compared to others: it beat the all-time Steam peak of Crimson Desert, but it's still far behind Black Myth: Wukong, which peaked at about 2.4 million players at once on Steam in 2024.
• Keep in mind: these numbers count only PC players on Steam, and only people playing at that moment. They don't include PS5 players, and they aren't sales figures. S-GAME hasn't announced sales yet.

Critics vs. players

• Critics: about 88 on Metacritic and around 91 on OpenCritic. Reviewers especially praise the combat.
• Players: Steam user reviews sit at roughly 76% to 78% positive so far, with several thousand reviews. That's still positive, but lower than the critics' scores, and early ratings can move a lot in the first days.
• Some reviews point to a lack of polish in places and boss fights that break up the pace.

Where you can play it

• Platforms: PS5 and PC. No Xbox version has been announced.
• Release: October 29, 2026 (it unlocked on October 28 in some time zones on PC). It was originally planned for September 9 and was delayed for extra polish.
• A physical PS5 disc edition is planned for 2027.

Why it matters

After Black Myth: Wukong in 2024, Phantom Blade Zero is another sign that big Chinese action games can be global hits on Steam. Two huge launches from Chinese studios in two years is a trend Western publishers are watching closely.

My take

A 431,000-player launch is a huge result for a new game from a smaller studio, and critics clearly think the combat delivers. The gap between critic and player scores is worth watching, though: if S-GAME fixes the rough edges quickly, those Steam reviews could climb fast. Are you playing it, or waiting for a few patches?