2025’s Best-Selling Chinese Premium Games and Their Lore
Every year, the volunteer team from 国游销量吧 (Chinese Premium Games Sales Tieba) gathers stats and curates a chart to showcase the best-performing premium games of the year. From 2024-2025, I translated the annual sales charts into English with the team’s permission (Read the 2024 annual chart in English with my notes here), But for 2025, I decided to skip spending hours aligning text and adjusting font sizes in Canva, and just go with a plain-text version that includes all the key information I think you should know.
2025 was also a year marked by unprecedented game-related drama. At least half of the games below were involved in controversies and review bombs for drastically different reasons. I’ll try my best to summarize what happened to give you an overview of the chaos that is Chinese Games.
Disclaimers: All games listed below are pay-to-download games made by Chinese studios released in 2025. The following sales and revenue data are estimates based on publicly available information and may not accurately reflect actual sales. Units Sold data accounts for sales from all platforms where the games are available, including but not limited to Steam, consoles and mobile.
- Units Sold: 3.8M
- Revenue: ¥250M (~$34.7M)
Escape from Duckov is a top-down PVE indie survival shooter in a duck's world. The game is made by Team Soda, a Bilibili studio that also created critically acclaimed titles like Soda Crisis and Snake Force (free to play on Steam). It’s an inspiring example of taking the necessary time to develop the team’s speciality across titles and building and carrying forward institutional knowledge. However even a very objectively well-made game isn’t free from drama. There is currently an ongoing review bomb and boycott campaign by the game’s Chinese community due to the dev team’s treatment of a modder who added malicious code to one of his mods.
- Units Sold: 1.8M
- Revenue: ¥75M (~$10.4M)
Road to Empress I is a FMV “choose your own adventure” where you play the young Wu Zetian and navigate your way towards becoming the empress while trying to survive the back palace. In addition to the high production quality that match TV series standards, the main reason for the game going viral was for having numerous unexpectedly gruesome ways of death, amplified by streamer reaction videos. This morning I watched Ludwig’s playthrough of the game (footage of which also went viral in China) and it was indeed entertaining. However the team has only released the first part of the game which means the story isn’t complete yet.
- Units Sold: 1.4M
- Revenue: ¥120M (~$16.7M)
I think this Steam review describes the game best: “Sultan’s Game is more than just a strategy game; it's an interactive historical novel written by you. With its complex systems and vivid details, it recreates the glory and hardships of ruling a vast empire. If you crave deep strategic challenges, enjoy the process of building from humble beginnings to greatness, and revel in the intellectual thrill of political maneuvering, then this game will provide dozens of hours of immersive imperial life.”
This might be a blockbuster hit that could only be made possible in China. The game is alternative in almost every way: it’s dark, political, punishing, and text-heavy, with a premise rarely explored in video games. It got attention initially from the beautiful art style (what I could describe as a tasteful Art Nouveau meets 19th Orientalist Art that’s almost never seen in games) and a great demo, but the speed at which the game exploded at launch far exceeded my expectations. Upon release the game was almost immediately review bombed by anti-woke people who didn’t like that the game has some homosexuality content. Luckily the sensible eventually took over and boosted the review score to settle at 94% positive. The game also cultivates a massive doujin community, dominantly women, who have been creating great fanart and fanfic even before the launch. I believe the doujin potential is one of the pillars that made the game relevant and active nearly a year after the launch.
- Units Sold: 1.26M
- Revenue: ¥330M (~$45.8M)
Since Black Myth Wukong launched in summer 2024, WUCHANG was one of the first spiritually AAA successors that came out. With high expectations came what I could only call a disastrous release that started as the usual optimization complains but somehow developed into one of the nastiest review bombs (how many times have I mentioned review bombs in this article yet?) I’ve seen in games. It went far beyond the game itself, spilling into broader cultural and political territories that I frankly feel too overwhelmed to unpack right now (nationalism, Han chauvinism, to name a few). I talked a little about the drama on Bluesky.
- Units Sold: 1.24M
- Revenue: ¥38M (~$5.3M)
If you’re not familiar with what happened around this game, you’d probably think it’s just another Chinese FMV dating sim, but the dev team went berserk and decided to wage gender war. With the number of references in and beyond the game, you really need to be on Chinese internet full time to understand the full context. PC Gamer covered the drama here and the game’s Wikipedia page explained the drama a little bit. As a result the dev team changed the original Chinese game title from “Gold Digger Game” to “Anti Romance Catfishing Simulator”, but apparently the English title captured their original intent.
- Units Sold: 800K
- Revenue: ¥140M (~$19.4M)
AI LIMIT is an anime style sci-fi Soulslike ARPG.
- Units Sold: 500K
- Revenue: ¥11M (~$1.5M)
Tiny Pasture is a desktop idler with cute animals.
- Units Sold: 450K
- Revenue: ¥31M (~$4.3M)
POPUCOM is a multiplayer co-op platform adventure game developed by Hypergryph, best known for gacha titles like Arknights and Arknights: Endfield.
- Units Sold: 390K
- Revenue: ¥27M (~$3.8M)
Legend of Heroes: Three Kingdoms is a single-player RPG where you shape the Three Kingdoms era.
- Units Sold: 360K
- Revenue: ¥8M (~$1.1M)
Sweet Home is a visual novel set in a Chinese high school that explores parted friendships, ambiguous romances, tangled relationships, and flawed families.
This is another unexpected hit that almost came out of nowhere. It’s often labeled as a “teenage lesbian lovestory” which is the main reason it received attention, but it also explores other nuanced experiences of being a teenager in China, dealing with stress from school and navigating a stressful household etc. Stories like this are yet rarely told in a video game format and in such a stylish and relevant aesthetic. This is why a lot of players were able to see a certain part of their own memories in it and that the game also gained a huge active doujin community.
In terms of visual style and vibes, Sweet Home also has this emo quality that is reminiscent of games like Z.A.T.O.. Unfortunately the game is currently only available in Chinese.
From no.11 to 20, I’ll be a bit more selective and only highlight the games that I think you should look into:
- Units Sold: 350K
- Revenue: ¥14M (~$1.9M)
From the game's Steam page:“Matchmaking Inc. is a modern-themed RPG designed for men that combines gameplay elements of simulation management and text adventure.”
I really didn't expect that the game with such an interesting premise would eventually turnout to be a galgame/dating sim designed for men, alas.
- Units Sold: 280K
- Revenue: ¥20M (~$2.8M)
Whisper of the House is a home decor game. It was one of my 2025 GOTY contenders. The game is simply beautiful inside out, from a game design perspective it created a structure that makes semi-linear levels feel organic and breathable by using a small open-world as a hub. And from a creative expression perspective, the game was full of small touches that felt magical and playful. This game has a lot of heart and honestly deserved a lot more attention from the world.
- Units Sold: 260K
- Revenue: ¥8M (~$1.1M)
Cozy Island is a cozy farming sim and life sim.
- Units Sold: 230K
- Revenue: ¥9.7M (~$1.35M)
Beauty, Please Don’t Affect My Cultivation is a FMV dating sim.
- Units Sold: 200K
- Revenue: ¥10M (~$1.4M)
Along with Road to Empress I, Mandate Of Heaven is a fresh take on the very much tired FMV genre over saturated with dating sims. Similar to Road to Empress I, this game also has high production value and a clearly seasoned cast, except the plot and acting is less dramatic and more like a serious historical C drama. Finally there’s something for people who want to role play as Empress or Prince.
- Units Sold: 200K
- Revenue: ¥6.8M (~$0.94M)
I Am Legion is a survivor-like game.
- Units Sold: 170K
- Revenue: ¥11M (~$1.5M)
House of Legacy is a city building, sandbox and management game inspired by ancient China.
- Units Sold: 170K
- Revenue: ¥8M (~$1.1M)
Border Pioneer is a city-building tower defense game.
- Units Sold: 160K
- Revenue: ¥10M (~$1.4M)
Demonic Mahjong is a Roguelike deckbuilding game inspired by Mahjong.
- Units Sold: 150K
- Revenue: ¥8.1M (~$1.13M)
Hello Love: 18 Again is a FMV dating sim.
Below you can read the full charts in Chinese:
