Asian Games Identity V: China Claims Gold to Close the Campaign — Mu Xinyue Becomes the First Female Champion Since Esports Joined the Asian Games, and a 3-Gold, 1-Silver Recap#

By Zhanlan Yingren (NTGame Art Editor)

Hi everyone, Zhanlan Yingren here. Yesterday, at the end of my single-day gold decider preview, I wrote: whatever the result, remember that night — remember a 20-year-old girl writing herself into the history of Chinese Asian Games esports.

Overnight, the answer arrived, and it ran further than we imagined: China beat host Japan to take the gold in Identity V’s Asian Games version; Mu Xinyue (in-game ID: Taowan’an) stood on the top step, becoming the first female champion since esports became an Asian Games event; and China’s esports delegation closed its campaign on that gold, turning in 3 golds and 1 silver across four events.

Yesterday’s piece was about “suspense and qualification”; today’s is about “settlement and review” — how the scores ran, how the record fell, what went wrong on the organizational side, how to balance the books across all four events, and esports’ next step within the Asian Games system. All scores, names, and events follow the reporting of Xinhua, Cover News, Qilu Evening News, and Legal Daily — this article adds no speculation of its own.

1. Final Review: Five Rounds of Tug-of-War, the Host Bites Down to the Last Breath#

First, China’s complete path through the single-elimination bracket. Ten teams entered Identity V’s Asian Games version at these Games; China entered the knockout stage directly on its perfect qualifier run; the quarterfinals and semifinals used Bo3, and the final escalated to Bo5.

Two clean 2:0 sweeps — China gave South Korea and Chinese Taipei no round to breathe. But the real test was the final: the opponent was Japan, on home soil, and Bo5 meant the opponent had five rounds to study, adjust, and counterpunch.

The final’s round-by-round scores deserve a close read:

For readers new to this event, a format note first: Identity V’s Asian Games version is asymmetric competition — each round has a first and second half, with the two teams taking Survivor and Hunter once each; the Survivor side fields 4 players, the Hunter side 1, with points scored by escapes and eliminations. Both sides playing both chairs naturally keeps scores tight — that is why three of the final’s five rounds ended level, and in this event a “level” score means both sides extracted near-equal points on offense and defense: the normal state of high-level tug-of-war, not dullness.

The half-by-half splits of each round were not disclosed in Xinhua’s reporting, so out of factual discipline I won’t reconstruct them — but the five-round totals alone already tell the story. Read them in sequence:

• Round 1, 4:4: whether China took Hunter or Survivor first, neither side could hold the other down; the host’s form arrived fiercer than expected;
• Round 2, 5:5: one point more than Round 1, the deadlock tightening further — at this point one mental slip from either side could cascade into lost rounds;
• Round 3, 7:2: the widest margin of the match and the watershed of the final — with both sides’ cards on the table after two rounds, China produced a dominance-level performance and dragged the initiative back to its side;
• Round 4, 4:4: Japan, backs to the wall, bit back to level; after this round everything was nominally still alive, and the home crowd was at its loudest;
• Round 5, 3:1 at the half: China gave the deciding half no chance at all, ending the suspense outright.

Worth noting are the format differences across the knockout: the quarterfinals and semifinals were Bo3, leaving two rounds of slack; once the final escalated to Bo5, the contest was no longer just mechanics but also state endurance and in-series adjustment across a five-round scale. China didn’t lose its shape after two drawn rounds; the Round 3 explosion and the Round 5 close-out show coach Zhu Tianlong had this squad’s Bo5 rhythm fully mapped.

The shape of the curve is interesting too. At 4:4 and 5:5 across the first two rounds, the host dragged the match fully into gridlock; China’s 7:2 in Round 3 is the round I most wanted to review — producing that margin after both sides had shown their hands twice means China’s Survivor macro and Hunter pressure were both online on the same night; Japan’s 4:4 in Round 4 made the home-crowd comeback posture complete; and in Round 5, China took the first half 3:1 outright, denying the decider entirely. Xinhua’s phrasing was that China “took the win directly” — the championship suspense ended in the night of September 30, Nagoya time.

This champion squad’s full roster deserves to be recorded in full:

Two Hunters, five Survivors — the dual-structure configuration we discussed in yesterday’s preview, where two nearly non-overlapping skill trees must be trained to the same height. Last night, every name on this roster stamped the word “dual structure” onto the podium.

Yesterday’s preview also carried one unresolved worry: with China’s qualifier bye into the final eight, live sharpness rested entirely on the pre-tournament camp, while every quarterfinal opponent had survived two days of group play. Today’s answer wiped that question clean — 2:0 past South Korea in the quarterfinal, 2:0 past Chinese Taipei in the semifinal, and a five-round tug-of-war win inside the host’s home roar. Ten teams entered Identity V’s Asian Games version, and China walked the whole way without dropping a single match. Japan’s final roster, as of writing, had not appeared in authoritative Chinese-language reports — no guesses here.

2. Mu Xinyue: From “First Female Starter” to “First Female Champion”#

In yesterday’s preview, I spent a full section on the quality of Mu Xinyue’s “starter” status — no women’s division, mixed-gender assessment, group-first ticket. Today’s subject is the hammer that fell once that qualification was cashed in.

First, the official numbers: more than 500 registered athletes competed in these Asian Games esports events, only 14 of them women. On that base, Mu Xinyue not only made the field — she stood on the top step. Xinhua’s qualifier is explicit: the first female champion in Asian Games esports history. From esports’ 2018 Jakarta debut to medal events with gold on the line at Hangzhou 2023, three Games across eight years — the women’s champion column finally has its first name.

Connect her timeline and you see a remarkably compressed road:

• 2019: first opened Identity V, entering the game through an ordinary player’s daily routine;
• June 11, 2026: the Sports Information Center of the General Administration of Sport published the Asian Games esports national team rosters; she entered Identity V’s seven-person squad, becoming the first female athlete to take an Asian Games main-draw stage as a starter in Chinese esports history;
• September 30, 2026: Nagoya — the gold around her neck, the anthem in the air.

This 20-year-old Shandong native, born in 2006 and registered as an athlete through Jinan, took seven years from first opening the game to standing on an Asian Games podium. Seven years of pro-league refinement, of mixed-gender assessments in the training camp, and of that tug-of-war under the main-stage lights last night.

Her post-match words, in Xinhua’s original: “When I first started competing, I never imagined I could win a gold medal at the Asian Games. When the anthem played and the gold hung around my neck, I was thrilled and overjoyed — this may be the happiest moment of my life.” Reading that, I kept thinking: “never imagined” is probably her truest footnote right now — just months ago, when the roster was published, the public debate was still “can a woman handle main-draw intensity,” and she turned that question into a historical document with a gold medal.

Teammate Shi Xiangwei’s post-match line deserves to be copied down by every competitive gamer: “It’s fine to be nervous, fine to feel pressure — just don’t let that pressure and nervousness distort your in-game execution.” Saying that inside a single-day gold decider, in single elimination, against the host’s thunderous home crowd — the line is itself a footnote to this team’s mental management.

Her Asian Games file, compressed into one card for your archive:

One more word on the background of the “first female champion” record. We covered the selection mechanism yesterday — same-stage assessment, results decide; with the record settled today, its meaning is clearer: a registration base of 14 against 500 shows female players remain a tiny minority in professional esports’ population pool; and what Mu Xinyue’s championship proves is precisely that within that pool, as long as the channel stays open and the ruler stays fair, there is no reason the summit should be locked to anyone. Her name needs no qualifier — she is an Asian Games champion. But from today, the title “Asian Games champion” will forever carry a historical marker in front of it, one she opened.

3. Thirty Minutes Offline: The Other Side of Gold-Medal Night#

The gold-medal story is told, but this final holds one episode that must appear in any review — it touches the question no international multi-sport event can avoid when staging esports: infrastructure.

Xinhua reported that during the halftime interval of the fourth round, an on-site network cable failed and the match paused for nearly 30 minutes. Xinhua’s omnibus coverage cross-confirms the detail, phrased as “the evening esports match was interrupted midway by a network outage.”

For traditional sports, a venue network outage might mean a scoreboard flickering dark for a moment; but for esports, the network is the arena itself — the match stops completely, and thousands of spectators in the venue and on screens wait half an hour together. Round 4 sat exactly at the point where Japan had clawed back to 4:4 with morale at its peak, so the outage was also an unplanned test for China: the lead erased, the rhythm hard-cut, and after rebooting there was still the host’s counter-wave to absorb. Judged by the result, the stability of the 3:1 first-half close in Round 5 says everything about this team’s interference resistance.

And the episode was not isolated. Wind the clock back to earlier on September 30 — Ichiro Hirosawa, mayor of Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, held a press conference that day, publicly apologizing to athletes and relevant personnel for problems in the Games’ organization and logistics; he attributed the causes to both human error and insufficient communication, and said he could not yet clarify whether budget cuts were behind them. The same day, the sport climbing venue saw a timing-system failure interrupt competition for 20 minutes.

Place these events side by side on the same day, and the organizational ledger of these Games is not hard to read:

A city hosting an international multi-sport event saw two different types of technical failure at two venues within one day, with the mayor stepping out to apologize while sidestepping the budget question — that combination sends a message worth chewing on. For us esports viewers, the outage adds an industry-level reminder: esports’ demands on venue networks are hard requirements with no discount; any future city wanting to bring esports into a multi-sport Games must build network infrastructure to “competition venue” rather than “conference venue” standards. Nagoya’s lesson belongs in the ledger for whoever comes next.

4. 3 Golds, 1 Silver: China Esports’ Nagoya Final Ledger#

With Identity V’s gold banked, China’s esports delegation has turned in all four of its answer sheets at these Games. Xinhua’s account is clear: China entered Naraka: Bladepoint, Honor of Kings, Identity V’s Asian Games version, and Game for Peace’s Asian Games version — taking gold in the first three events and silver in Game for Peace, closing these Asian Games esports campaign at 3 golds and 1 silver.

Four events, four storylines, each with a dedicated piece on this site: Naraka: Bladepoint’s historic first gold, Honor of Kings’ title defense, Game for Peace’s silver-chase decider and silver-medal review. Only with all four answer sheets together do you see the complete portrait of Chinese esports at these Games.

Separate each answer sheet’s storyline, and the closing audit is complete:

• Naraka: Bladepoint: a 3:0 final over Thailand delivered the delegation’s first esports gold of these Games — domestically developed wuxia competition standing at the top of an official stage for the first time;
• Honor of Kings: the title defense went the distance — the mobile king’s rule ran from the pro league all the way to an international multi-sport event;
• Game for Peace: the silver stings, but its suspense held to the very last moment, and the chase itself was worth watching;
• Identity V: closed the show and took the gold — asymmetric competition’s first Asian Games appearance ended with both the gold and the “first female champion” staying in China.

The scorecard also carries several industry-level footnotes worth pulling out on their own:

• NetEase’s twin titles debut at the Asian Games: Naraka: Bladepoint and Identity V are both developed by NetEase and both made their Asian Games debuts here. One wuxia battler, one asymmetric competition — two domestically developed titles of entirely different genres each took a gold at the same Games: Chinese games entering international multi-sport schedules as “official medal events” is shifting from one-off cases to a batch pattern;
• A genre originator: Identity V is the first asymmetric esports event in Asian Games history. The more diverse the genres, the wider the foundation for Chinese gaming’s voice in the international sports context — we covered that in yesterday’s preview, and tonight’s gold is the hardest possible endorsement;
• Eight years, a three-step leap: esports’ three steps inside the Asian Games system, each firmer than the last:

Each step’s stride grew, and this edition brought a historic change in the athletes themselves;

• The big picture: as of September 30, China’s delegation had taken 151 golds at these Games. Esports’ 3 golds and 1 silver sit inside that total — a graceful complement from the new-generation events to the traditional medal powers.

For a veteran who came up through the Stone Age era, reading “domestically developed games took back-to-back golds on the Asian Games’ official stage” stirs feelings no data can capture. Twenty-some years ago, the Chinese online games we played in internet cafes and the phrase “official event of an international multi-sport games” were separated by the industry’s entire upgrade road; today, that road’s milestone stands on Nagoya’s podium.

5. The Denial and Kuwait: Esports’ Next Step in the Asian Games System#

With the campaign closed, one suspense cannot be dodged: how secure is esports’ future inside the Asian Games system?

A rumor recently claimed “esports will withdraw from the Asian Games after 2026.” In response, the Olympic Council of Asia sent Xinhua a statement on September 28: the organization has not made, nor published, any decision on esports leaving the Asian Games, and the rumor does not match its work plans. Some foreign outlets also reported that an executive-committee resolution document had leaked touching on esports’ status — that document’s authenticity and force have no primary corroboration and contradict the official statement; when you hear such claims, follow the official line and don’t spread them as settled fact.

Next to the denial sits a more concrete piece of information: the OCA confirmed it signed a host city contract with Kuwait on September 19, with Kuwait to host the first Asian Esports and Mind Sports Games in 2027. OCA Director-General Hussein Al-Musallam said the event was created to give Asian athletes more stages and “will not weaken esports’ status within the Asian Games system.”

Read side by side, the layout of esports in Asia’s multi-sport landscape is already fairly clear. First, the timeline:

• September 19: the OCA signs the host city contract with Kuwait; Kuwait will host the first Asian Esports and Mind Sports Games in 2027;
• Recently: the rumor that “esports will leave the Asian Games after 2026” begins circulating;
• September 28: the OCA sends Xinhua its statement denying the rumor — no decision made or published on esports leaving the Asian Games;
• To be announced: the sports program for the next Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, is not out yet — whether esports makes the list has no answer.

“Two tracks running, answer pending” is probably the most accurate summary of the current layout:

• The Asian Games main line: officials explicitly denied the withdrawal rumor; esports’ status in the Asian Games system “will not be weakened”;
• The dedicated new track: the 2027 Kuwait Asian Esports and Mind Sports Games lands, giving esports and mind sports a stage of their own;
• The open question: the next Asian Games, to be held in Doha, Qatar, has not published its program — whether esports stays on Doha’s schedule has no answer in writing yet.

A denial on one side, a new dedicated event on another, and Doha’s program list still unwritten — “two tracks running, answer pending” remains the most accurate summary. For Chinese esports, Nagoya’s 3 golds and 1 silver answer at least one question solidly: as long as there is a stage, this team has the strength to keep standing on podiums. Doha’s suspense belongs to time.

6. Coda: Heat and Afterglow#

Once the result landed, the outside heat arrived quickly — Honor of Kings launched a gold-medal crossover for the National Day holiday: from 00:00 October 1 to 23:59 October 7, all heroes, all direct-sale skins, plus 10 selected limited skins were free to play; Galo’s new skin “Moonlit Strings” could be earned free through the event, and the Star Coin Mall opened exchanges for an Asian Games recall animation, a gold-win voice pack, and dynamic signatures of the esports athletes. Publishers are getting fluent at channeling Asian Games heat into their games — part of the commercial flywheel that esports’ Asian Games entry has built.

As for Identity V itself, I suspect the true afterglow will last longer. IVL league viewers will remember this night, and many first-time viewers who never watched asymmetric competition will open the game for the first time because of one gold medal — that is the most direct gift a multi-sport event gives a niche genre.

By the time this piece posts, the podium lights in Nagoya have probably gone dark, but some images will last a long while: the lead ground out point by point across five rounds of tug-of-war, the screens relighting after thirty minutes offline, and the 20-year-old who said “this may be the happiest moment of my life” as the anthem played. The results book will record the wins and losses the same day; those images will stay with everyone who watched, and outlast the medals.

As a veteran who walked straight through the golden age of Chinese online games, I’ll add a second half to yesterday’s line “medals oxidize, records get broken”: the moment a record is broken, it also rewrites the height of the ceiling for everyone who comes after. Mu Xinyue pushed that ceiling up one notch — after her, talk of women at the summit of esports is no longer an argument about possibility, but a chase of established fact.

The Nagoya leg is over; Chinese esports’ 3 golds and 1 silver are on the books. The next stop’s name has not been announced, but one thing is certain: the podium will always be there, and the people walking this road will only keep multiplying.

This baton was passed beautifully.

— Zhanlan Yingren, NTGame Art Editor