NetEase Games

NetEase Games is the publisher of Blood Message and the parent of the studio building it. Development sits inside the company through 24 Entertainment's Lin'an Studio, which operates under the ThunderFire division. NetEase has positioned the title as its first AAA single-player release, a deliberate move away from the mobile and live-service work the publisher has been most closely associated with.

Role on Blood Message

NetEase plays two roles on this project at once. As publisher, the company funds the work, owns the brand, and handles marketing, distribution, and platform relationships. As parent of the developer, it also owns the team: a wholly internal unit, not an external partner. The Overview article covers how the title is framed in the company's announcements.

A Strategic Pivot

NetEase's catalog has historically leaned toward mobile and online live-service titles. Blood Message is the headline example of a stated push to broaden that mix. Reveal materials describe it as the publisher's first AAA single-player title: buy-to-play, story-driven, with no microtransactions and no online layer. The choice of a linear, cinematic action-adventure for that first major step is itself a statement of intent. The pivot adds to the existing slate rather than replacing it; the broader catalog continues alongside the project.

Who Built It

Day-to-day development is handled by 24 Entertainment's Lin'an Studio. 24 Entertainment is a NetEase subsidiary; Lin'an is the in-house name for the team building Blood Message. The studio sits inside the ThunderFire division, the publisher's larger internal development group. Lead production is credited to Zhipeng Hu, an Executive Vice President at NetEase, which signals how senior the project is within the company.

Lin'an Versus the Naraka Team

24 Entertainment is best known outside of this project as the parent of Naraka: Bladepoint, the company's competitive martial arts brawler. The team building Blood Message is not the Naraka team. Lin'an Studio is a separate group inside 24 Entertainment, organized around AAA single-player development rather than live-service and competitive multiplayer. The two share a parent studio name and a corporate division but are distinct units with different leads and different scopes. Expectations rooted in Naraka, such as online play, ranked progression, or seasonal content, do not carry over to the systems covered in the Combat and Stealth article.

Project History

The public history is short. Blood Message was revealed in June 2025, with the trailer centered on the Messenger and his journey. Leaked reporting before the announcement places the greenlight in 2018 and full production starting in 2021; those dates are not formally confirmed and should be treated as informed estimates. The publisher has been more direct about the team, describing Lin'an as veterans pulled from major international AAA studios, hired for their experience on large-scale single-player projects.

Wider Catalog Context

Blood Message is one entry in a much larger NetEase catalog that includes Naraka: Bladepoint, Where Winds Meet, Once Human, Marvel Rivals, and Diablo Immortal, co-developed with Blizzard. None of those titles share a development team with Blood Message; they are noted only to place the new project on the map of the publisher's output.

Unconfirmed Details

• Full team size: the headcount of Lin'an Studio has not been published.

• Studio location specifics: while Lin'an is the historical name for Hangzhou, the exact office, satellite sites, and remote arrangements are not detailed publicly.

• Marketing budget: campaign spend and commercial targets have not been disclosed.

• Console pre-launch timing: PC and consoles are confirmed in general terms, but per-platform release timing, demos, and pre-launch console events have not been laid out.

• Co-development partners: no external studios have been named as collaborators.