Phantom Blade Zero is already chasing Black Myth: Wukong's numbers

Phantom Blade Zero has sold roughly 300,000 units on Steam in the few days since pre-orders opened, according to estimates from analytics firm Alinea Analytics, putting the action RPG on a sales pace that's comparable to Black Myth: Wukong.

Phantom Blade Zero is a wuxia-inspired action RPG developed by Chinese studio S-GAME and led by CEO Qiewi "Soulframe" Liang. The game was originally slated for a September 9 release before S-GAME pushed the date back 50 days for some additional polish, with pre-orders opening August 11 and a dedicated PlayStation State of Play showcase following on August 17. It's priced at $59.99 for the standard edition and $69.99 for the Digital Deluxe version.

An impressive feat ahead of release

Those 300,000 units have generated an estimated $14.5 million in Steam revenue so far. The game also currently leads this year's Steam wishlist chart with 1.6 million users tracking it, well ahead of its October 29 launch. Black Myth: Wukong, which went on to sell 30 million copies in under two years, remains by far the biggest triple-A game to come out of China. Alinea's data puts Phantom Blade Zero at 73% of Wukong's pre-launch sales pace, and 6.4 times ahead of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers with 70 days still to go before release.

Cautious optimism is in order

Speaking with Alinea analyst Rhys Elliott, Chinese game industry consultant Daniel Camilo cautioned that domestic hype hasn't reached Wukong levels yet, describing Phantom Blade Zero as "much more a 'gamers' thing," but in a big way. Camilo also pointed out that Phantom Blade Zero holds a publishing license for mainland China and will release there simultaneously with the rest of the world, letting S-GAME and its partners run a heavier real-world marketing push domestically than titles without that license typically get, on top of the usual online promotion.

Getting even reasonably close to WuKong’s numbers would already mark a major success for a studio releasing its first premium triple-A title for PC and PS5, and strong reviews at launch could push those numbers even nearer to the record. Phantom Blade Zero is set to release October 29 on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and PS5, with no Xbox or Switch version currently announced.