Death Becomes Her: China’s New Hit Game Finds Fans in Failure

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NEWSDeath Becomes Her: China’s New Hit Game Finds Fans in Failure<br>A live-action game about China’s only female emperor is finding devoted fans among people who have never played it themselves. Instead, they watch streamers struggle, die, and try again.

By He Qitong<br>Jun 29, 2026#gaming

Within five days of launch, Road to Empress II had sold more than 1 million copies across the globe. Much of that momentum, however, came from fans who may never play it themselves.<br>Since early June, the live-action interactive game has spread across Chinese social media through livestreams, where audiences watch streamers make life-or-death palace choices, argue over romance routes in on-screen comments, and laugh at the protagonist’s increasingly absurd deaths.<br>The heroine can be betrayed by allies, trapped by rivals, condemned for backing the wrong faction, or forced into exile or execution. In one ending, she is poisoned and laughs herself to death.

The game draws on the life of Wu Zetian, China’s first and only female emperor (690–705), and follows last year’s breakout installment about surviving the imperial court. The sequel shifts to the struggle for power, where player choices can save an ally, doom a rival, or plunge the country into war.<br>Zong, a 25-year-old postgraduate student in Shanghai, discovered Road to Empress II through livestreams and followed one streamer’s playthrough for about three hours over four days.<br>“I don’t have the patience to play by myself,” she told Sixth Tone, asking to be identified only by her surname. “Watching others play while reading the on-screen comments is more fun than playing alone.”<br>Released June 9 and priced from 49 to 88 yuan ($7 to $13), depending on whether users were new or returning players, Road to Empress II pushed total franchise sales past 3 million copies. The first game, released last September, sold 1 million copies in 12 days and stood out in a live-action interactive genre long dominated by male-oriented romance titles.

The sequel runs more than 12 hours, includes nearly 100 decision points, and adds combat interactions, giving players — and viewers — more routes to debate, revisit, and second-guess.<br>New characters, from powerful ministers to conflicted traitors, have also expanded the moral stakes, such as whether to forgive betrayal, sacrifice an ally, or pursue power at almost any cost.<br>To Zong, that makes a traditional video game seem like a drama watched with a crowd. “Interactive FMV (full-motion video) games are like a mini TV drama or movie, but they give audiences much more participation,” she said.<br>That appeal, she added, is especially strong at a time when many viewers lack the patience to finish long television series. “The multiple endings are also much more interesting than the single ending of a TV drama.”<br>One of her favorite streamers turned the game into a running commentary, analyzing each decision, predicting possible outcomes, joking through the plot, and sometimes returning to absurd choices simply to satisfy viewers’ curiosity.<br>“Sometimes he notices perspectives I would never think of,” Zong said. “He’s funny, but he also helps you understand the story differently.”<br>Split screen<br>Fu Yiqiang, a 29-year-old livestreamer who once taught esports commentary at a university, streamed the first Road to Empress out of curiosity, when only a small circle of gamers were covering it.<br>By the time the sequel arrived, his followers were urging him to play. His streams drew about 140,000 views, unusually high for his livestreaming channel.<br>Fu said the game’s interactive choices give livestream audiences a role in the story. “The more viewers participate, the better the engagement metrics, and the more likely the platform is to recommend the stream,” he said. “Audiences also become more invested because they want to influence how the story unfolds.”

As of June 26, Road to Empress II replays on video streaming platform Bilibili had drawn more than 20 million views, with some streams attracting more than 100,000 concurrent viewers. Two weeks after release, replay streams were still drawing more than 8,000 concurrent viewers.<br>Following the success of the first installment, the game’s maker, New One Studio, made livestreaming central to the sequel’s rollout, backing Road to Empress II with early promotion across multiple platforms.<br>Post-release, the studio invited veteran actress Liu Xiaoqing to play it on Xiaohongshu, the lifestyle app also known as RedNote. Liu, who played Wu Zetian in a 1995 television series, drew tens of millions of views with her blunt reactions to the game’s palace choices, helping push the title into trending discussions.<br>The studio also worked with tech giant Tencent on distribution and invited well-known esports players to stream the...