CastleStorm is heading to China as Zen Studios partners with NetEase

Zen Studios is looking East for further success with CastleStorm, its critically acclaimed medieval action-strategy game.

Already released in the West on home consoles, PC, and mobile, CastleStorm is coming to iOS and Android in China later this summer. Zen Studios has partnered with Chinese Internet giant NetEase to help distribute CastleStorm in the tricky but potentially lucrative Chinese mobile market.

With mobile gaming in China set to generate $25 billion by 2016, it’s no wonder western developers want to get involved. But it’s getting harder to have a hit because of the increasingly crowded — and hugely fragmented, in the case of Android — mobile storefronts, and successfully localizing for Chinese gamers is about way more than just translation.

CastleStorm started life on consoles and PC in 2013 before heading to iOS as a free-to-play title in May 2014 under the name CastleStorm: Free to Siege. It lets players act out medieval sieges and fights between knights and Viking warriors and includes tower defense and brawler elements.