A Chinese drama series made by South Korea’s gaming company Smilegate based on its mega-hit first-person shooter (FPS) game CrossFire has created a splash in China, drawing more than 100 million views in first two episodes.

CrossFire, Chinese title Chuan Yue Huo Xian, became the second-most popular drama on Tencent Video, a Chinese video streaming platform operated by Tencent. It ranked top on Weibo, the country’s social media platform, in which a post related to the drama attracted 760 million views and 2.25 million comments. It also became the most searched subject on Zhihu, a Chinese question-and-anwer website, and five keywords related to the drama included in the top 50 most searched words of TikTok, a video-sharing social networking service.

CrossFire is the first Korean game played in an e-sports league to be made into a drama series. It took four years and cost 270 million yuan ($38.5 million) for Smilegate and China’s Youhug Media to produce the 36-episode series.

The drama stars Luhan, a former member of Korean boy group EXO, and Wu Lei as the main leads. It airs on the Chinese largest video streaming platform Tencent Video, owned by Tencent, a game company that released Smilegate’s CrossFire in the Chinese market in 2008.

CrossFire is one of the most played online (FPS) game in China, with accumulated number of global users reaching 1 billion in 80 countries.

Smilegate is launching various content using CrossFire intellectual properties. In 2015, it signed a contract with American film producer Neal Moritz who produced Fast & Furious to make CrossFire to become the first Korean game IP to enter Hollywood.

By Lee Yong-ik and Choi Mira

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