Soulframe Liang On His Career Path & Online Nickname

S-Game is the development studio behind Phantom Blade Zero, an upcoming samurai Soulslike with Chinese cultural elements. As an AAA project that attracted attention and anticipation following the success of Black Myth: Wukong, this Chinese studio’s backstory is a point of interest for many. 

Recently, CEO and Game Director Liang Qiwei (Soulframe Liang) sat down with PC Gamer to talk about how he refused an offer from a company in New York after graduating from Yale with a master’s degree in architecture and returning to China to set up his own indie studio to create video games. 

Their conversation started with how the online nickname Soulframe was created. Thanks to his hard-to-pronounce Chinese name in English, he got some random idea back in high school. “I just figured out something cool and not-so-usual, something fantasy and something solid coming together.”

This nickname has been used for so long, actually around 15 years, so he trademarked it in China. If you happen to be a fan of sci-fi shooter Warframe, developed by Digital Extremes, you might already know that its melee-oriented MMORPG sequel, Soulframe, was announced back in 2022. Whoopsie, same name here. The developers tried to reach out to Liang via Tencent to purchase the trademark but with no luck. “No, I’m not selling,” he said with laughter.