Since the beginning of the year, the most sensational news for ByteDance is undoubtedly that in mid to late March, it officially confirmed the sale of its highest quality asset, Muting (including Muting's Guangzhou Lighthouse studio), to Savvy Games Group of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund PIF for $6 billion. This figure represents a significant increase compared to the rumored acquisition price of $4 billion for ByteDance in 2021.

Despite the clear contraction of the gaming business, according to industry media "Game News" statistics, there are still 8 game studios remaining at ByteDance after this transaction, namely:

Beijing Oasis Studio (its key product is "Crystal Core", with a global monthly flow estimated to hover around 10 million recently); Beijing BlueSea Studio (self-propelled chess game "Aizha Duel", which was tested in Japan in 2025 and is currently being taken down); Shanghai ZERO36 Studio ("Sailing King's Hot blooded Route" - monthly flow of domestic iOS terminal fluctuates between 6 million and 10 million, "Moon in the Heart of a Mountain" - monthly flow of domestic iOS terminal does not exceed 600000 this year, and "Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage" - monthly flow of domestic iOS terminal is 3.6 million in April); Guangzhou Glow Studio ("Jing Jie Dao Ming" - Global April Revenue approaching 20 million); Guangzhou Youai Business Unit ("Placing Girls" - Japanese version with April revenue of 31 million); Neon Studio in Shenzhen (developing a shooting game for UE5 console); Hangzhou Jiangnan Studio ("Planet: Reboot" - estimated global revenue of around 3 million in April) and Hangzhou Xingguang Liumei Studio.

At that time, the above-mentioned studios had at least 18 projects under research, and overall, their product reserves were very abundant.

01

ByteDance's first game of the year, "Lightning Strike," generated 300000 iOS revenue in 2 days

Tested for 5 days but did not make it to the top 100 of the bestseller list

On May 15th, the 3D female fantasy real-time strategy RPG "Lightning Strike" from the reserve new game officially began public testing in China. This game is the first new game launched by ByteDance in 2026, and also the first "big move" in ByteDance's gaming business after the sale of Mu Tong. It was developed by Reflecting Fox Studio, a subsidiary of Hangzhou Xinguang Liumei, and released by Chaoxi Guangnian.

It should be noted that in June 2025, Xingguang Liumei was acquired by Muting and included in ByteDance's game map. After Muting was sold, Xingguang Liumei was separated from Muting and merged into Chaoxi Guangnian.

The pre download of "Lightning Strike" was launched two days in advance (May 13th). The first day's download volume (referring only to the mobile iOS version, the same below) was 22000, and the second day it increased to 26000, ranking 20th on the iOS game free list. On the day of the public beta, the download volume was about 54000, and the game free list also rose to a high of 12th place. The next day, it slightly declined to 48000.

On the iOS side, the estimated cost for the first day of public testing is around 110000 yuan, and it will increase to 190000 yuan the next day.

As of May 19th, the game is ranked 23rd on the iOS Game Free List and 111th on the Best Seller List.

It is obvious that based solely on market data, the performance of "Lightning Strike" is not impressive enough, and it seems that it cannot afford the title of the opening game. To explore the reasons behind this, we must first start from the game itself.

02

3D adult simulation+tower attack gameplay, differentiation and controversy

Objective factors trigger restrained advertising and product promotion

As we all know, the anime card placement game "High Energy Hand Run Group" is a core blockbuster of Xinguang Liumei, but after 2020, the company decided to turn to a more subdivided vertical track in order to avoid the positive competition with large factories, because it realized that the anime market environment was no longer loose. "Radmin Flash" was a key product born under this strategy.

The most distinctive and recognizable feature of this game is undoubtedly the art style of "realistic portrayal of women+full 3D realistic modeling", which first matches the sci-fi background of the 2053 alien invasion set in the game.

Secondly, Xingguang Liumei has already accumulated experience in 3D modeling, PBR art, and other aspects in products such as "High Energy Handmade Team" and "Flying Dragon Knight".

Next and most importantly, compared to the selection of girls as the main characters and the relatively flat art style in the second installment, "realistic and realistic 3D" has finer and more three-dimensional details. Coupled with the modeling setting of "adult girls", the game can greatly meet the sensory needs of players in terms of visual and auditory aspects.

In fact, the early "Endless Wandering" and the recent "Dust and White Forbidden Zone" also followed a similar approach to achieve the goal of expanding from small to large.

However, things are always two sides of the same coin. Although realistic 3D realism comes with its own traffic, with the popularity of 3D Chinese animation and the rise of AI, users' requirements for modeling have begun to increase, making it easy to be labeled as AI.

There is a clear controversy among players regarding 'Raid', with some believing that its AI feel is too heavy, and this AI trace still exists in other art materials and texts; Another group of players believe that although the modeling is exquisite, it contrasts sharply with the rudimentary UI of the game interface. In addition, the characters lack vivid dynamic expression in the plot dialogue.

Another promotional selling point of "Lightning Strike" is the innovative "tower attack" gameplay, which reverses the "tower defense" concept (enemies hide behind cover to defend their position, and players need to take the initiative to attack), combined with some design elements of war chess categories, creating a quite novel gameplay framework.

Specifically, in a single game lasting 1-3 minutes, the goal is to actively advance, protect the commander, and completely annihilate the enemy. During the process, flexible character deployment and continuous extension of the front line are the basic operations, while using the cover mechanism to deliver side attacks is the core tactic of the entire game;

The battle adopts a grid battlefield, where players consume deployment costs for recovery and kill replenishment over time. They can only deploy characters within 7 grids around friendly forces, gradually expanding the front line through relay mode; The characters are divided into seven professions: heavy shield, assault, firepower, sniper, hidden blade, medical, and engineering. Before the war, it can be paired with 8 combat ready characters and tactical modules, and activated by characters from the same camp to achieve a synergistic effect;

The gameplay modes include mainline normal/raid, restricted area breakout PVP、 Collaboration and meat pigeon, supporting automatic deployment and double speed.

In terms of innovative gameplay, 'Lightning Strike' is naturally worthy of recognition, but this also raises the cost of understanding.

In addition, although there is no threshold for game operation, the depth of strategy and cultivation is very deep. The former requires a mature community ecosystem to 'eliminate', which is obviously not a strong point that can be achieved overnight. The latter, combined with factors such as tight project costs, can affect commercial design, which has been clearly experienced, such as the extraction mechanism of character weapon pools, conservative server opening benefits, and frequent recharge entrances on the main interface.

In addition to the gaming experience, Chaoxi Guangnian has also been relatively restrained in terms of advertising and promotion, indicating a deliberate cost control.

According to DataEye, the release of "Lightning Strike" only began in January this year and its volume remained in the single digits. On the day of the public beta, the number of materials did not exceed a thousand.

On the promotion side, public information shows that the development of "Luminous Lightning Strike" was initiated in 2021, and the entire research and development cycle lasted for more than 5 years;

At the end of 2023, the game will release its first PV and soon begin its first testing. At that time, Chen Yu, the founder of Xin Guang Liu Mei, stated in an interview with "Game Grape" that due to the control over quality and volume, the estimated cost of the game would be more than twice that of the company's previous products.

But it was also this year, perhaps due to the impact of the industry downturn after the epidemic, or the objective fact that new explosive products were difficult to sustain, that shareholders such as Sequoia Capital, Shanghai Huandian, Youban Entrepreneurship, and Jiaxing Shengyou, who were originally beautiful and promising, collectively withdrew their shares. At that time, their external shareholder was only Hangzhou Broadcasting Technology under NetEase (38%).

The reduction in external support, coupled with the limited revenue that online games can continue to provide, doubled the pressure on the company and also affected the biggest investment at that time, "Lightning Strike". At the end of 2023, the company carried out a large-scale layoff, with one-third of its employees being laid off for "Lightning Strike";

In March 2024, news broke that Xinmei Liuguang had laid off employees again and affected the project team of "Lightning Strike". In July of the same year, the game obtained the version number and was officially renamed, but it fell into silence until a PC test was conducted in December;

The turning point occurred in 2025, when ByteDance began to intervene. First, Chaoxi Guangnian confirmed the agency release of "Lightning Strike", and then it was acquired by Mu Tong and incorporated into ByteDance's gaming business system. At this stage, the pace of the game has significantly accelerated. In early April, the second test - tower attack test - was launched, which was also the first mobile test. In July of the same year, it participated in the 2025 CJ, and in mid to late October, the third test - spark test - was launched;

At the end of April, the game finally confirmed its public beta date this year, and on May 10th, it was announced that it would be linked to "High Energy Handheld Team".

Throughout the process of the project initiation of 'Lightning Strike', the project team has encountered numerous setbacks, which have raised concerns among players and the industry. There have been several periods of silence, during which there have been tests but little promotion or content marketing.

03 Summary

Overall, the short-term performance of "Lightning Strike" is indeed not strong enough. This is not only related to the controversy over art AI and the shortcomings in gameplay experience, but also to the setbacks experienced by Heartray Flow Beauty in the past three years, which have led to the project development not being "perfect". It is also related to the promotion side chain reaction caused by the objective fact that ByteDance's gaming business has shrunk.

However, these cannot deny the game's thinking and efforts in differentiated positioning and minimally invasive gameplay.

It is worth noting that the goal of the game at the beginning of its development was globalization. In November 2025, the international version of "Warp Knights" will begin testing on Google Play in a few regional markets. Although it will soon be taken down, it is expected that the progress of the international version will also accelerate after the public beta of the domestic version.

Finally, for Heartray Flow Beauty, although "Lightning Strike" is difficult to reach the high level of "High Energy Handheld Team" as its first work after being acquired, and even experienced layoffs again around May Day, it is better to have the support of a large company than to fight alone. In addition, the strategy of seeking differentiation breakthroughs through vertical segmentation and previous research and development accumulation, with the implementation of internal adjustments, the future of Heartray Flow Beauty is worth continuing to pay attention to.