Wuchang's €30M Franchise Sold for Just €4M

Over one million copies sold. More than €30 million in revenue. A peak of 130,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch. By most measures, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers was a commercial hit for a new IP in one of gaming's most competitive sub-genres. And yet, the entire franchise just sold for €4 million.

Digital Bros, the Italian parent company of publisher 505 Games, announced this week that it has entered into an agreement with Chengdu Lingze (better known as Leenzee Games) to acquire full intellectual property rights to Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. According to the official press release, the deal was valued at approximately €4 million (RMB 32 million), and it grants Digital Bros complete ownership while eliminating any future royalty obligations to Leenzee.

That gap between €30 million in revenue and a €4 million sale price tells you everything about the state of things behind the scenes at Leenzee. You don't sell a proven, revenue-generating franchise for roughly 13 cents on the euro unless you're either desperate, pivoting hard, or both.

What Happened at Leenzee

Reports surfaced earlier this month that Wuchang's director and producer, Xia Siyuan, was dismissed from Leenzee shortly before the Lunar New Year. His departure reportedly triggered a chain reaction: the core development team was dissolved, with remaining staff told to transition into support roles for other projects rather than continuing work on the Wuchang franchise. When members of the team reportedly refused, they were let go as well.

The picture that emerges is of a studio whose leadership wanted to go in a different direction from the people who actually built the game. Siyuan has since registered his own company, according to multiple reports. So the talent that made Wuchang a success is scattered, and the studio that housed them no longer has the IP.

Digital Bros' press release frames the acquisition in corporate-speak about "timely decisions regarding future development and related investments," but I think the subtext is clear: 505 Games published this game, watched it sell a million copies, and then watched the developer implode. Buying the IP for €4 million is less a strategic masterstroke and more a salvage operation. They're protecting an asset they already invested in before Leenzee's internal turmoil could drag it into oblivion.

The deal also eliminates royalty payments to Leenzee, which means every euro from future sales of the existing game flows directly to Digital Bros. On a purely financial level, that alone could justify the purchase price given the game's ongoing revenue.

But is what happens next. Digital Bros has done this before. 505 Games acquired the Ghostrunner IP from All In! Games back in 2021 and brought developer One More Level on board to make Ghostrunner 2. A similar playbook here would mean finding a studio, possibly even reassembling members of the original team under Siyuan's new company, to develop a Wuchang sequel. Whether that's realistic depends on factors we can't see from the outside: contract terms, team willingness, and whether Digital Bros is prepared to fund a full sequel rather than just milk the existing game's tail revenue.

There's also the censorship issue that dogged the original game. Chinese players accused Wuchang of being "anti-Han" due to its portrayal of historical figures, which led to a review-bombing campaign and a controversial Patch 1.5 that altered boss fights so certain enemies no longer died. Western players viewed the changes as incoherent self-censorship. With the IP now under a European parent company, Digital Bros technically has final say on creative decisions going forward. Whether they'd reverse those changes or address them in a sequel is entirely speculative, but the possibility exists in a way it didn't when Leenzee held the rights.

I'll be blunt: selling a franchise that generated €30 million for just €4 million feels like watching someone pawn a gold watch for bus fare. Something went seriously wrong inside Leenzee for this to happen, and the people who lost the most are the developers who built the game and then lost their jobs for wanting to keep building it. If Digital Bros can actually get a sequel off the ground with the right team, this could end up being one of the shrewdest acquisitions in recent memory. If they just wanted to stop paying royalties on existing sales, it's a much less inspiring story.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers launched on July 24, 2025 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and is also available through Game Pass. Its recent Steam reviews currently sit at "Very Positive."