Indie and AAA Chinese-made video games are having a moment on Steam and console

Sun Wukong’s raunchy antics, Monkey King and the preeminent Chinese literary hero are a great example of how to have fun. Travel to the WestIn the coming weeks, we will be telling you about. Wakong: Black MythA gritty description Dark SoulsIt was an action-RPG with a retro-influenced theme that received enthusiastic reviews from around the world. Within one day of the release of its pre-alpha gameplay, back in August 2020, the video chalked up nearly 2 million views on YouTube — and 10 million views on Chinese video streaming site Bilibili.

Yet the release of this trailer wasn’t the result of any concerted marketing effort by Hangzhou-based indie studio Game Science, which is mostly made up of former Tencent employees. Feng Ji, Game Science founder, explained on Weibo that the trailer, which is 13 minutes long, was initially used to recruit potential employees. Ji admitted there were technical issues in Ji’s gameplay footage. Of course, this didn’t prevent the video from generating significant buzz among the local gaming community. In fact, it’s this very commotion that propelled Wakong: Black Myth’s popularity globally, suggested Xuan Li, the founder of Chinese games publisher Thermite Games.

“When it was first released, it [Game Science] didn’t even contact IGN. The release was on Weibo as well as Bilibili […] and it broke the record,” Li says. “Everyone, every single one of us were talking about it and then IGN picked it up, ‘Oh, there’s a game, looks like a great next-gen AAA game, [an] AAA action game from China that nobody knows about.’ So they picked the trailer, put it on their website, and it blows up.”

It is so celebrated Wakong: Black Myth, that it’s not uncommon for local online media to herald the rise of local prestige games, using terms like 3A 国产, meaning domestically made AAA games.

However, what used to be an exception in China’s games industry might not continue in the future. Wakong: Black Myth wasn’t the only game that emerged from China to widespread international acclaim in recent years. Open-world role-playing games such as “The Game of Thrones” are just a few examples. Genshin Impact, sci-fi simulation Dyson Sphere ProgramBattle royale, &? Naraka: Bladepoint are noted for their AAA-esque level of polish and production value — traits not usually associated with games from the country.

Image: Youthcat Studio/Gamera Game

“People outside of China don’t think Chinese people are making these premium games, because we are not known for the games that are focusing on the gameplay or the quality of the game. We’re more about the microtransaction and the monetization, stuff like that, right?,” adds Li. “[The]Chinese market [the] biggest gaming market in the world, but it’s not being respected as one because we have so many mobile games and PC games that are only focusing on how to milk the games.”

The Chinese games landscape has long been dogged by perceptions that it makes mostly free-to-play mobile games rife with microtransactions, a feature that’s less of a dirty word within China compared to the Western games industry. However, the tide may be changing. Chinese developers are now attempting to make prestige video games, not just for their domestic markets but also to appeal to a larger global audience. Already, a bumper crop of existing and upcoming Chinese games — titles like FIST: Forged In Shadow TorchAnd Wuchang: Fallen Feathers — rely less on monetization features, and more on adrenaline-fueled action, photorealistic graphics, and a captivating narrative.

The changing environment behind Chinese gaming landscape has accelerated this trend, with the lifting 15-year ban placed on all video games consoles. China banned almost all consoles for gaming in 2000. This ban was due to its addiction and the impact of video games on youth. In 2015, China lifted the ban on all game consoles. Companies such as Sony and Microsoft entered the Chinese market to launch their consoles. While sales of consoles in the country have been sluggish — the console market hit $1.84 billion in 2020, compared to mobile game revenue of $29.2 billion in the same year — there is growing demand for consoles, fueled by the increasing disposable income of Chinese urban households. This is combined with console’s global popularity, estimated at $92.2 billion in 2020 worldwide, presents a huge opportunity for game developers.

Image: TiGames/Antiidelay

It is a part of the reason why there has been a growing demand for stories-rich games, both locally and globally. “I do think that one of the reasons why Chinese gamers now are looking forward to more story driven games, precisely because […] a lot of them are becoming a whole lot wealthier, they have a lot more disposable income,” explains Josh Ye, a journalist for South China Morning Post, who has covered China’s emerging tech sector, including the games industry. “After all, story-focused games are more a premium experience.”

All these are exacerbated by the various obstacles with publishing games for the local games market, such as the sheer difficulty of obtaining game license approvals, which has slowed down following China’s campaign to combat gaming addiction. Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad noted that there’s a cap on the amount of Chinese games allowed to be sold each year.

“It’s a soft cap, there isn’t an official number out there I can give you. But generally speaking, there’s around 1,200 games approved every year since 2018,” Ahmad says. This means that only the most suitable games — ones that would get through the famously finicky government regulations — will be awarded the license.

“If you are a Chinese publisher, you wanna focus on the games that are going to perform the best, as opposed to trying to publish everything. It used to be, you know, before 2018, you could publish whatever you want really, and it would get approved, it would just take a bit of time,” Ahmad explains. “Now, you have a certain limit, obviously you’re still gonna try to apply it, as many as you want, but if there’s only 1,200 games releasing every year — even Tencent doesn’t get as many licenses as they used to back in 2017.”

Ye concurs in the same vein that local game developers will have to put more effort into producing high-quality games. “The same logic dictates that that would force a lot of game developers to really produce the top quality game they can, because they know that there’re only maybe five games company [that] can obtain licenses, so there is also very fierce competition in China,” Ye elaborates. “Overall, video gaming companies like Tencent [and] NetEase, they will start to frame their like, ‘Okay this is our big AAA game this year’, they sort of, you know, [decide that] “let’s maybe make money” but to sort of display their- showcase their development powers. So I think we can definitely expect a whole lot more top-of-the-line quality games coming from China.”

Mihoyo is the creator of this global approach. Genshin Impact. The studio has been setting up international offices following the game’s unprecedented popularity, when Genshin ImpactWith 5.3 Million international pre-registrations, it was the most successful global launch for a Chinese video game.

Image: Mihoyo

Ahmad attributes the enormous popularity of Genshin ImpactPrestige Chinese games have been rising in popularity due to their East Asian cultural references. However, they still offer the same gameplay, presentation, and aesthetics as games more appealing for international audiences. “In the case of Genshin Impact, they’ve been able to create something that feels like a console game, plays like a console game but really under the hood it’s been scaled from a mobile-type game,” he says. “And so a lot of these developers who have a lot of experience in developing mobile games, online PC games are taking a lot of these learnings, and they are combining it with global influence when it comes to gameplay and platforms […] they’ve been able to scale it across to PC, to console and to reach audiences on those platforms that are more likely overseas.”

Josh Broadwell was a professional player with these characteristics. Genshin Impact for some time. The game’s cultural elements are a big factor in keeping him playing, along with an attentive mix of diverse cultures and the minute details, from environmental design to architecture, that are weaved into the game’s setting.

“Mondstadt is a fairly generic European-inspired city, and the region surrounding it doesn’t have many standout features. You’ll hear a lot about how they value freedom in their relationship with the gods, but it doesn’t make much sense until later when the story unfolds,” Broadwell says. “Liyue, the Chinese-inspired region, is completely different, with more distinct architecture, a better developed soundtrack, and lore and quests tied more closely with the story. Here, the focus is on humans co-existing with the gods and earth, so you see a wildly different take on environmental design and even setting as a result.”

Another key part of this recent wave of games was partly due to how the Chinese games industry has been a popular resource for many AAA companies — from EA to Microsoft — to outsource parts of their game development for many years. This also has allowed Chinese developers to develop their AAA-level games.

“There will be a wave of these premium quality games from China, from those companies that we never thought would do things like that,” says Li. “And other studios are experienced, either indie studios or they’ve done a lot of outsource, like art and tech outsource for the AAA companies outside of China. We think they have enough experience and are now making their own games. They are supported by many investment firms because they believe that. [they] would be the future of Chinese gaming.”

Find out more Naraka: Bladepoint24 Entertainment, a developer, has been envisioning the game as a global market-ready title, and incorporating its cultural heritage into their unique brand of battle royale. This is not only done out of something as fundamental as enhancing profitability, but also because the game’s battle royale design “needs a lot of players to make it work”, according to Ray Kuan, the studio’s producer. 24 Entertainment originally aimed to make a world that incorporated all cultures and not just East Asia.

“In building the world of Naraka, we decided not to limit ourselves to Chinese wuxia martial arts stories,” says Kuan. “Instead, we aimed more for a world where the boundaries are blurred, one full of Eastern-style deities, magic and mystery. This flexible approach to lore design allows richer and more varied characters, while still allowing for the possibility of new characters with cultural traits in the future. But upon receiving feedback from overseas players, the team instead chose to focus on designing a roster of heroes inspired by East Asian culture.”

Image: 24 Entertainment

24 Entertainment remains focused on creating a stimulating battle royale title. “I think it would be a big mistake to just zero too much in on the fact that there’s something special about these Chinese games that makes them successful, other than reasons we already know that are already typically associated with other games,” says Ye. “[They’re]These games are of high quality, and they run well. […] I think that you need to give credit where credit’s due: They are well-polished, good games just overall.”

Naraka: BladepointIt was admired by the players because of its unique ability to allow them to engage in brutal battle royales with melee weapons, fisticuffs and other tools. Winter 2020 results from an international beta revealed that international players enjoy grappling, maneuvering about the map and are interested in melee fighting. The team decided that this was the focus of their game. “We stuck to those gameplay elements that made us stand out, kept gathering feedback, and closely analyzed it before making adjustments,” says Kuan. “We optimized the game to the best of our ability, developing the systems and functions found within even further, such as the face customization feature.”

This was an excellent move by the studio. Kyle Campbell, a passionate fan Naraka: BladepointThis is the thing that appealed most to him as a player, according to. “What I love about the game is its combination of free-flowing combat and ridiculously deep combat mechanics. NarakaIt is one of those games that just involves moving about the map. Air dashing from treetop to treetop and hook-shooting to gain the high ground on an opponent makes you feel like gravity doesn’t apply,” says Campbell.

Jason Coles, an additional author, echoed this sentiment. Naraka: Bladepoint player. “The art style and melee-based approach to a traditionally shooter-based genre was what made NarakaStick out to me. I love melee combat, and while I also love battle royale games, I’m rubbish at shooting. Naraka offered a chance to play one that I’d actually be good at.”

It would be a great question to ask: “Why are these things happening now?” Given the numerous obstacles at play, from the escalating game licensing issues in China, to the barrage of new and growing restrictions surrounding the Chinese games market, it didn’t seem likely. This new wave of Chinese prestige games was naivety due to many factors.

“A lot of the games in China right now are free-to-play, they are designed a certain way, they’ve always drawn [from the] traditional MMO genre, or theme, or gameplay style,” says Ahmad. “And so, the market has become saturated with those over time. So there’s a lot of room for broader genres to take off, and that includes on mobile and in the free-to-play space too. Essentially, there’s a lot more room for different game genres, types, themes, but also business models, so [we’re] seeing a lot more developers experiment with creating premium games or even subscription games to some extent.”

That’s not to say that this would be a simple task for these Chinese developers, many of whom are work as small teams and would largely be perceived as indie developers in the western world. These games, despite their high level of production and polish, still struggle with discoverability. There are also language issues. Many developers are not fluent in English or don’t know how to reach western audiences. Ahmad mentions that Chinese publishers have a rapidly growing market for working with Chinese developers.

“Some of these are from publishers themselves, as in some of these are like Tencent-backed or there are from other publishers in the country, and others are just new companies that have sort of sprung up from staff, or through experience in the past who are now working to essentially offer a complete solution to these Chinese developers, so whether it’s localization or marketing or whatever, those publishers now have tons of games in their portfolios,” he says.

It’s still a long road ahead, but it’s also an opportunity for the Chinese games industry to move beyond the stigma of only making free-to-play mobile and MMO games, which are mostly seen as cheaply made cash grabs.

“When you look at Game Science and Wakong: Black Myth,” says Ahmad, “they left Tencent, […]They were developing a game that was free to play, and a MMO game based on the same topic. Travel to the West. They wanted to create their own single-player story premium-type game where they didn’t have to rely heavily on having a very large user base and high monetization of it longterm, where they can just focus on a single product and release it.

“[Chinese developers] are taking all their learnings of the past 20 years, and we’re seeing a shift from China being the outsourcing center of the world, to now producing its own content.”