The Game Census
Road to Empress I cover art

Road to Empress I

New One Studio · 2025-09-08

Steam

AdventureCasualIndieRPGSimulation

Modes: Single player

Releases: Sep 08, 2025 (PC (Microsoft Windows))

You've never played a game like this before. Road to Empress I is a cinematic palace adventure where your choices decide everyone's fate. Tackle multiple story branches and a high mortality rate with charm, wisdom and courage? First...survive.

Road to Empress I is an Adventure, Casual, Indie, RPG game released in 2025, priced at $8.49, with Very Positive (87% of 13192 reviews) sentiment.

87%
positive of 13k reviews
Very Positive
steam's rating (official)
6,804
twitch viewers (latest)
6804.0
viewers/channel (concentration)
80/100
critic score (1 outlets, IGDB)
89/100
IGDB user rating (5 ratings)
gold
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
Playable
Steam Deck (Valve)
SteamOS: Playable
$8.49
steam price (US)
Road to Empress is a 2025 Chinese interactive film historical drama video game developed and published by New One Studio. Presented in full-motion video and released worldwide on September 9, 2025, players follow protagonist Empress Wu, who becomes China's first and only woman emperor during the Zhou dynasty (690–705). The video game sold over a million copies within its first two weeks.

Trailer

Road to Empress I trailer thumbnail

Add Road to Empress II to Your Steam Wishlist Now!

≈416,223 YouTube results for this game's trailer search

Health check

Healthy
  • · 1,028 reviews in the last 8 weeks (~129/week).
  • · Review velocity up 11% vs the prior 8 weeks.
  • · Current weekly pace is under 5% of the all-time peak week (2,974 reviews).
  • · Top 3% of 28,763 Adventure games in the census by review count.
Estimated sales: 268k–602k copies

Review-multiple estimate from 13,375 total reviews — how this is computed.

All-time low: $6.79 at Steam (2025-09-09)via IsThereAnyDeal

12-month high $8.49 · on sale 3 of 6 observed days (census price snapshots)

Review momentum

PositiveNegative
2.5k2.5k20252026Week of 2025-09-09: 2,489 positiveWeek of 2025-09-09: 485 negativeWeek of 2025-09-16: 1,894 positiveWeek of 2025-09-16: 264 negativeWeek of 2025-09-23: 859 positiveWeek of 2025-09-23: 154 negativeWeek of 2025-09-30: 610 positiveWeek of 2025-09-30: 81 negativeWeek of 2025-10-07: 487 positiveWeek of 2025-10-07: 55 negativeWeek of 2025-10-14: 348 positiveWeek of 2025-10-14: 32 negativeWeek of 2025-10-21: 382 positiveWeek of 2025-10-21: 46 negativeWeek of 2025-10-28: 243 positiveWeek of 2025-10-28: 18 negativeWeek of 2025-11-04: 196 positiveWeek of 2025-11-04: 27 negativeWeek of 2025-11-11: 123 positiveWeek of 2025-11-11: 12 negativeWeek of 2025-11-18: 161 positiveWeek of 2025-11-18: 5 negativeWeek of 2025-11-25: 559 positiveWeek of 2025-11-25: 11 negativeWeek of 2025-12-02: 112 positiveWeek of 2025-12-02: 16 negativeWeek of 2025-12-09: 78 positiveWeek of 2025-12-09: 11 negativeWeek of 2025-12-16: 114 positiveWeek of 2025-12-16: 12 negativeWeek of 2025-12-23: 145 positiveWeek of 2025-12-23: 17 negativeWeek of 2025-12-30: 126 positiveWeek of 2025-12-30: 5 negativeWeek of 2026-01-06: 94 positiveWeek of 2026-01-06: 5 negativeWeek of 2026-01-13: 85 positiveWeek of 2026-01-13: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-01-20: 87 positiveWeek of 2026-01-20: 6 negativeWeek of 2026-01-27: 76 positiveWeek of 2026-01-27: 2 negativeWeek of 2026-02-03: 76 positiveWeek of 2026-02-03: 8 negativeWeek of 2026-02-10: 61 positiveWeek of 2026-02-10: 5 negativeWeek of 2026-02-17: 97 positiveWeek of 2026-02-17: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-02-24: 62 positiveWeek of 2026-02-24: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-03-03: 70 positiveWeek of 2026-03-03: 4 negativeWeek of 2026-03-10: 79 positiveWeek of 2026-03-10: 9 negativeWeek of 2026-03-17: 93 positiveWeek of 2026-03-17: 5 negativeWeek of 2026-03-24: 77 positiveWeek of 2026-03-24: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-03-31: 64 positiveWeek of 2026-03-31: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-04-07: 64 positiveWeek of 2026-04-07: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-04-14: 61 positiveWeek of 2026-04-14: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-04-21: 56 positiveWeek of 2026-04-21: 6 negativeWeek of 2026-04-28: 54 positiveWeek of 2026-04-28: 4 negativeWeek of 2026-05-05: 60 positiveWeek of 2026-05-05: 2 negativeWeek of 2026-05-12: 42 positiveWeek of 2026-05-12: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-05-19: 42 positiveWeek of 2026-05-19: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-05-26: 44 positiveWeek of 2026-05-26: 2 negativeWeek of 2026-06-02: 73 positiveWeek of 2026-06-02: 3 negativeWeek of 2026-06-09: 244 positiveWeek of 2026-06-09: 58 negativeWeek of 2026-06-16: 243 positiveWeek of 2026-06-16: 50 negativeWeek of 2026-06-23: 241 positiveWeek of 2026-06-23: 28 negativeWeek of 2026-06-30: 202 positiveWeek of 2026-06-30: 30 negativeWeek of 2026-07-07: 156 positiveWeek of 2026-07-07: 16 negativeWeek of 2026-07-14: 77 positiveWeek of 2026-07-14: 11 negativeWeek of 2026-07-21: 63 positiveWeek of 2026-07-21: 9 negativeWeek of 2026-07-28: 58 positiveWeek of 2026-07-28: 4 negativeWeek of 2026-08-04: 57 positiveWeek of 2026-08-04: 9 negativeWeek of 2026-08-11: 59 positiveWeek of 2026-08-11: 8 negativeWeek of 2026-08-18: 23 positiveWeek of 2026-08-18: 6 negative
Weekly review counts (Steam review histogram). Positive above the line, negative below.

Price history

$8.49$6.792025-09-092026-07-092025-09-09 — best price $6.792025-09-22 — best price $8.492025-12-18 — best price $6.792026-01-05 — best price $8.492026-03-19 — best price $6.792026-03-26 — best price $8.492026-06-25 — best price $6.792026-07-09 — best price $8.49
Lowest recorded price across tracked stores, per day (census snapshots).

Attention

3.4k1272026-07-01 — 143 pageviews2026-07-04 — 326 pageviews2026-07-07 — 273 pageviews2026-07-10 — 351 pageviews2026-07-13 — 228 pageviews2026-07-16 — 205 pageviews2026-07-19 — 231 pageviews2026-07-22 — 215 pageviews2026-07-25 — 233 pageviews2026-07-28 — 715 pageviews2026-07-31 — 2,404 pageviews2026-08-03 — 870 pageviews2026-08-06 — 1,326 pageviews2026-08-09 — 575 pageviews2026-08-12 — 366 pageviews2026-08-15 — 293 pageviews2026-08-18 — 270 pageviews2026-08-21 — 222 pageviews2026-08-24 — 418 pageviews2026-08-27 — 268 pageviews2026-08-30 — 271 pageviews2026-09-02 — 187 pageviews2026-09-05 — 201 pageviews2026-09-08 — 176 pageviews2026-09-11 — 149 pageviews2026-09-14 — 192 pageviews2026-09-17 — 173 pageviews2026-09-20 — 182 pageviews2026-09-23 — 165 pageviews2026-09-26 — 175 pageviews2026-09-29 — 148 pageviews2026-10-02 — 564 pageviews2026-10-05 — 430 pageviews2026-10-08 — 490 pageviews2026-10-09 — 342 pageviews
Daily Wikipedia pageviews (attention proxy, census-recorded).

Twitch viewers

7.8k6.1k2026-10-02 19:12 — 7,794 viewers2026-10-02 20:12 — 7,413 viewers2026-10-02 21:12 — 6,779 viewers2026-10-02 22:12 — 6,135 viewers2026-10-07 19:12 — 7,663 viewers2026-10-07 20:12 — 7,496 viewers2026-10-07 21:12 — 6,804 viewers
Hourly Twitch viewers (census snapshots).

Completion

40
achievements tracked
98%
earned "Nimble Moves"
63.1%
median achievement earned by

Global achievement rates from Steam.

Details

WindowsSingle-playerSteam AchievementsIn-App PurchasesFamily Sharing1 DLC

8 supported languages: English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Traditional Chinese, French, German

Post-launch support: 1 DLC released, first 2025-09-22 (Steam store data)

Console footprint

PlatformPlayers trackedCompletionTrophies/achievements
Steam (Steam)1,74011%40

Players tracked by Exophase (achievement/trophy trackers) — a sample of the player base, not total sales.

Where its players are

Share of Steam reviews by language (top languages measured) — a proxy for where the player base lives.

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Recent updates

Players also track

Star Control®: OriginsTanziaOmensight: Definitive EditionWeapon Shop FantasyAncient CitiesEternity: The Last UnicornDungeon Of Dragon KnightCHANGE: A Homeless Survival Experience

Similarity via IGDB.

Wikipedia ↗