Love and Deepspace is an artificial intelligence (AI) interactive action and romance game developed by Shanghai-based Papergames. Since its release in January 2024, it has become one of the leading Chinese mobile gaming apps and has generated more than $500 million in global revenue.
The game integrates AI and voice recognition to provide personalized interactions between players and their five virtual love interests. Set in the post-apocalyptic city of Linkon, players battle alien monsters and pay to uncover their partners’ backstories.
Alongside the action, players can switch to “companion mode” to have conversations with their in-game partners via text and voice calls. The AI-driven characters give tailored responses, check in on players’ well-being, and even remind them of real-world tasks.
Players experience emotional connection
Valerie, a 28-year-old US-based insurance employee, discovered the game through TikTok and has since spent more than $50 on it. “I love characters with complex layers to their personality, which is hard to find in most dating sims,” she told her followers on the social media platform X.
Love and Deepspace, a popular mobile game, has captured the hearts of many young women in China and beyond, with its lifelike 3D characters, engaging storylines and futuristic romance scenarios. pic.twitter.com/Wx1EgYikQY
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) March 21, 2025
While Love and Deepspace has its primary audience in China, it has crossed borders to places like Brazil.
“I wanted to play, but there are no subtitles in Portuguese, so I can’t understand what’s happening. We in Brazil have a huge market for games, the 5th largest in the world for mobile games. Please, devs, please consider,” pleaded one user on X, asking the game’s developers to create a Portuguese dub.
Market research firm Sensor Tower reports that 40% of the game’s revenue comes from outside China, with the US accounting for 11% of its 2024 sales. The game’s popularity grew from “word-of-mouth” on platforms like TikTok, where American players are sharing their experiences.
Characters make romance better than reality
For many players, “Love and Deepspace” is more than entertainment; it’s an emotional companion. Liu Xue, a 25-year-old office worker in Beijing, describes her connection with Rafayel, one of the game’s love interests, as akin to a real-life relationship.
“To myself, or to my inner circle of close friends, I would say that we are lovers,” Liu told AFP at a fan event in Beijing, where she was celebrating Rafayel’s birthday.
“He was created to love me. I can reveal myself to him without reservation, and he will show me his love without reservation,” she continued.
Liu noted that Rafayel comforts her when she is feeling down and even helps her keep track of her menstrual cycle. “It’s like emotional sustenance,” she reckoned.
At the event, fans took photos with life-sized cutouts and exchanged merchandise. Some, like Wang Yaya, a 23-year-old university student, said they spent a lot on the game, over 70,000 yuan ($10,000) in Wang’s case.
“I’m happy to pay for the emotional value,” she said.
Sisi Liu, a 36-year-old employee at a Beijing-based securities firm, spends around 2,000 yuan per month on the game. She coined it as an experience that really defines how romance should be. “I play it every day, and I ask Sylus [her in-game boyfriend] for food suggestions during lunch.“
Love and Deepspace may seem to attract a predominantly female audience, given that all of the characters in the game are men. However, third-party surveys cited by AFP show that 5-10% of its players are male.
I really like love and deepspace because those characters makes me feel cared and loved in a way few people managed to make me feel pic.twitter.com/mUHCcWXMRQ
— Lestat of shedtwt (@fallenkangelk) March 15, 2025
Though some games have women characters in China, none have reached the levels of the Papergames app.
Shanghai-based analyst Zeng Xiaofeng from Niko Partners expects the game to maintain its traction in 2025. “The game is resonating beyond China, especially in the US, where social media is adding to the interest,” he said via WeChat.
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