Phantom Blade Zero, a new action game from out of China, saw investors flock to it after Black Myth: Wukong’s success. The news comes from publishing and gaming consultant Daniel Camilo, who goes into detail about the funding explosion.
Camilo does state that not all funding came from Wukong’s success, as S-Game, the studio behind the Phantom Blade was in “advanced” development during its launch. He also adds that studios across the board began to see investment as Wukong’s hype began to take off.
Phantom Blade 0 received funding thanks to Black Myth Wukong's success.
According to two different sources who worked in the development of the game for S-Game (studio ) that I talked to directly, this is the case.
Details and clarifications in 🧵… pic.twitter.com/0MmQhBMkwo
— Daniel Camilo (@DanielOlimac) January 21, 2025
Camilo states on X, “What is news, is that [Phantom Blade Zero] did get a substantial amount of extra investments and funding thanks to the success of Wukong, allegedly.” This flurry of investment also saw the studio reportedly turn down investors as they’d received too much attention.
Part of this was thanks to the Tokyo Game Show’s and China Joy’s demos. The events pulled in enough positive attention that it averted the studio from “evaluating the future of the game”, or a polite way of considering scrapping the project. Camilo states that this is a “bit odd”.
S-Game was considering the “future” of Phantom Blade Zero before funding explosion
Despite its heavy rules on gaming, China is a hotbed of new games and an enormous amount of players. Wukong itself had reported numbers that 90% of players came from its home turf. It has sold over 20 million copies since its launch and become a prime staple of Nvidia’s advertising for its new graphics cards.
Marvel RIvals, the current hit online shooter, was developed in China and the ever-popular Genshin Impact from MiHoYo has been a top performer since it launched.
The consultant echoes this, claiming that it signaled “to many investors that AAA gaming is the new golden egg.” This is despite the West’s current battle with trying to keep the AAA industry afloat as costs, layoffs and development time hit record numbers.
S-Game has been around since 2011, mostly working on mobile titles like Phantom Blade: Executioners and the Rainblood series.