Phantom Blade Zero Hits Over Half a Million Players on Steam on Launch Day

Phantom Blade Zero, the Wuxia action-adventure title from Chinese developer S-Game, has launched and quickly hit over half a million concurrent players on Steam. The game has also topped the platform's best-selling games chart, ahead of newly released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.

As per SteamDB charts, Phantom Blade Zero has reached a peak concurrent player count of over 690,000, and that number keeps rising by the minute as of writing. The action title is also now number one on Steam's top sellers chart, ahead of Modern Warfare 4, which launched last week.

Phantom Blade Zero Among Most Played Games on Steam

Phantom Blade Zero is currently the second most played game on Valve's platform behind only Counter-Strike 2. The game's player numbers are only going to grow as it is just the first day of its launch. Phantom Blade Zero is also available on PS5, so the game's actual player count is likely much higher. Sony does not reveal player numbers for its platform.

S-Game has not confirmed player numbers or sales of Phantom Blade Zero. The studio, however, did confirm on Wednesday that the game will get a 5GB day-one patch to improve ray tracing and path tracing performance and fix several bugs.

Phantom Blade Zero has also received widespread critical acclaim. On Metacritic, the new game has an average rating of 88, while on OpenCritic, the game has an average score of 89.

The game's success follows in the footsteps of Black Myth: Wukong, another Chinese title that broke Steam records and topped sales charts at launch. Black Myth: Wukong remains the second most played game of all time on Steam. Phantom Blade Zero has a long way to go to reach the game's peak concurrent player count of 2.4 million.

Phantom Blade Zero, which draws from Chinese martial arts, follows the story of Soul, an assassin on a quest to clear his name after he is accused of his mentor's murder. The action title is set in a fictional Phantom World with a kungfupunk aesthetic. It features Wuxia-inspired fast-paced melee action combat. The game is out now on PS5 and PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store).