Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, foreigners have been leaving China in droves to escape the country’s strict “zero-COVID” restrictions, which had limited people’s domestic and overseas travel for nearly three years until rules began to relax recently. So when NetEase, the second-largest gaming company in China, said it had an expats-led studio working on a game out of Shanghai for the last three years, I was a bit surprised.
Helmed by lead producer Oscar Lopez and creative director Eve Jobse, Miaozi launched its first title globally on Steam last Friday. Called Cygnus Enterprise, the game, in the studio’s own words, is a “cross-genre single-player sci-fi game for PC that puts the player in charge of an outpost on an alien planet” and “alternates between small-scale city management and action RPG gameplay.”
Both NetEase and its rival Tencent have been placing more focus on overseas expansion as regulatory clampdowns hamper their domestic suc …
