Following a projected return to profitability in its 2025 earnings forecast, Perfect World Co.,Ltd. (002624.SZ) is at the beginning of a new product cycle. Recently, the company's core new game, "Yihuan," has entered its third domestic test and second overseas test, positioning it to potentially become a new engine for Perfect World's performance growth in 2026.
Annual performance has bottomed out, with an upward inflection point expected in 2026. In 2025, Perfect World's game business is forecasted to achieve a net profit attributable to shareholders of 830 million to 870 million yuan, with an adjusted net profit of 650 million to 690 million yuan. Key contributors include the PC game "Zhu Xian World," which launched officially in December 2024 and generated over 400 million yuan in gross transaction volume in its first month; "Zhu Xian 2," which entered public testing in early August 2025; and "Persona: Phantom of the Night," which launched in overseas markets like Japan, Europe, and America from late June to early July 2025, exceeding performance expectations. The strong performance of these multiple products provided significant incremental contributions to the 2025 results, collectively driving a fundamental recovery.
Zhongtai Securities points out that the company has transitioned from a phase of decline in existing business to a recovery cycle driven by new products. Perfect World stated that its game business will continue to focus on its strong genres and key projects. On one hand, it will continue to deeply cultivate its operating games to extract long-term value; on the other hand, it will fully advance games in development to unlock growth potential. While consolidating its existing MMO and anime-style product布局, the company is actively expanding into new genres like SLG and casual games and is further strengthening its overseas business efforts to promote steady development of its game operations.
New products are benchmarked against top hits, showing considerable commercial potential. Currently, the market positions Perfect World's core new game, "Yihuan," as the central driver for its 2026 performance growth. This supernatural urban open-world RPG, independently developed by Perfect World's Hotta Studio, is built on Unreal Engine 5.5 and incorporates NVIDIA DLSS 4 technology, supporting cross-platform play on mobile, PC, and consoles. The game is currently undergoing its third round of testing, receiving enthusiastic feedback. Data shows that leading anime-style games like "Genshin Impact" and "Honkai: Star Rail" achieved first-year gross transaction volumes of approximately 14.2 billion yuan and 9.3 billion yuan respectively, while "Wuthering Waves" reached about 1.4 billion yuan in its first year. Zhongtai Securities believes that "Yihuan," as a rare UE5 open-world title in China, possesses considerable commercial potential due to its differentiated theme, technological leadership, and expectations for global distribution.
In 2025, "Yihuan" was showcased multiple times at international exhibitions such as the Tokyo Game Show and Gamescom in Germany, receiving positive feedback from overseas players. It is expected to become a new pivot for the company's global strategy. In expanding its overseas business, Perfect World also adheres to the philosophy of "using esports to promote products and drive international expansion," using a multi-dimensional tournament system as an engine to continuously deepen its esports ecosystem. In August 2026, Perfect World will host the world-class tournament The International 2026 (TI2026) for DOTA2, among other premier global events, to foster the steady development of its esports business.
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