The top 10 most popular PC games in China (November 2013)

Another month has gone by, so it’s time to revisit our monthly list and see what Chinese gamers in the country’s many internet cafes have been engrossed in playing. November was a big month for new games, but the highest profile launch was probably Blade & Soul, a Korean MMORPG that hit open beta in China very late in the month but still impressed me quite a bit when I took it for a spin. But did it have the same impact on China’s gamers? Read through the top ten list and see for yourself!

1. League of Legends. The DOTA-style competitive online game that has been immensely popular worldwide.
2. CrossFire. China’s version of Counter-Strike (a tactical first-person shooter), another oldie-but-goodie that was actually developed by Korean devs SmileGate and released in 2007.
3. DNF (also called Dungeon & Fighter, Dungeon Fighter Online, etc.). A Korean-developed (Neople) beat-’em-up game that’s pretty old (released back in 2005) but still very popular in China.
4. QQ Speed. A 2008 racer developed and released by — no big surprise here — Tencent Games.
5. QQ X5 (QQ炫舞). A casual dance game also first released by Tencent in 2008.
6. Blade & Soul (剑灵). A beautiful-looking fantasy MMORPG from Korea’s NCsoft.
7. Dream of the Three Kingdoms (梦三国). A fantasy battle game developed by Hangzhou-based Electric Soul and released in 2009.
8. Assault Fire* (逆战). A Tencent-developed online first-person shooter first released in 2011.
9. Asura (斗战神). A fantasy MMORPG from Tencent that’s based (loosely) on Journey to the West.
10. New Dahua Xiyou 2 (新大话西游2). A new fantasy RPG developed by Netease and released in September that’s also based on Journey to the West (I’ve kept the title mostly in pinyin to help differentiate it from Fantasy Journey to the West 2, the other RPG sequel based on Journey to the West that Netease released this year).

So, as you can see the big change this month — one of the only changes, in fact — was that Blade & Soul came from nowhere and grabbed the number six spot on the list, pushing NBA2KOL out of the top ten for the first time in a while. But China’s top 5 games haven’t changed in some time and appear relatively unassailable. But could Blade & Soul grab one of those spots in December (which will be the game’s first full month in open beta in China)？We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m not holding my breath.

(via QQ Games)

*In previous lists, I’ve been calling this game AgainstWar in English, which is a more literal translation of its Chinese title, but I’ve now switched to its official English name.

Check out my first impressions of Blade & Soul: