Anyone who’s visited Harbin in recent days has probably had the same experience: even before entering the city, you’re surrounded by *Peacekeeper Elite*.
As the newest sensation in China’s cultural and tourism scene in recent years, the “Ice City” of Harbin is currently in full swing. The first wave of tourists arriving to enjoy the ice and snow discovered that, as soon as they touched down at Taiping International Airport, a giant screen featuring *Peace Elite* immediately caught their eye, displaying the message: “Your airdrop luggage is being transported”;and "PUBG"-themed tour buses packed with "chicken friends" are chasing airdrops at the Mader Hotel on Central Street and heading to Sofia Square for a cross-dressing photo op.
All of Harbin has become a veritable "Peacekeeper Elite City of Pain."
Behind the scenes, this is actually a cross-industry collaboration launched this year by two major influencers: *Peace Elite* and “Harbin Culture and Tourism.” In addition to offline partnerships, *Peace Elite* also released the “Ice and Snow Harbin” major update for its island map. The entire collaboration quickly sparked a massive surge in interest in Harbin’s cultural and tourism scene beyond its usual audience.
The data speaks for itself: The hashtag #PeaceEliteHarbinWinter has soared to the top of Douyin’s trending list, garnering over 1.1 billion views across Douyin and Kuaishou combined, along with more than 210,000 posts on Xiaohongshu… It’s no exaggeration to call this a “phenomenal sensation.”
As a major player in deep cultural and tourism collaborations across the country, this marks the third consecutive year that *Peace Elite* has partnered with Harbin for its major winter update. Over the years, the game has witnessed Harbin’s rise to prominence as a popular cultural and tourism icon, while continuously strengthening its partnership with the city’s innovative and dynamic cultural and tourism sector.
This year, the two parties have collaborated more closely than ever before, providing the gaming industry with yet another exemplary case of cultural and tourism integration.
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See, play, and experience:
How is Peace Elite helping to liven up winter in Harbin?
Ultimately, how does the "games + cultural tourism" collaboration capture the public’s imagination? Judging by the actual content of these collaborations, the offline experience serves as a key driver—whereas most games struggle to extend their reach into the physical world, *Peace Elite* treats real-world settings as a crucial "main battlefield," breaking down the barriers between the virtual and the real and achieving a cross-demographic influence rarely seen in gaming products.
Their first move was to “make an appearance.” This year, *Peace Elite* has stepped right into the forefront of Harbin’s urban cultural tourism scene, greeting visitors from all over the country at the airport and train station and offering warm greetings to those still adjusting to the cold climate.Next, they set up shop at must-visit landmarks such as Sofia Square, the China-Eastern Railway Bridge, and the Matier Hotel on Central Street, establishing real-life photo spots and interactive activities that covered the entire city of Harbin.
The "Photon Chicken" has taken center stage on Central Street, while Harbin’s local cultural and creative store "Erbin Gifts" has adopted the "Peace Elite" airdrop box skin… Clearly, Harbin’s cultural and tourism authorities are eager to incorporate these gaming symbols as key elements to decorate the city this winter, while also providing opportunities for gamers and tourists to engage with the game content up close.
Secondly, when gameplay is deeply integrated with urban culture, it sparks a new vitality—the promotional content created by *Peace Elite* by combining the wildly popular “Snowpiercer” K7041 train with the game’s “Subway Escape” mode has become one of the most widely shared cultural and tourism symbols of this collaboration.
Specifically, they ingeniously combined the "treasure hunting" gameplay with elements like snow, ice, and trains, linking it to the popular film *Snowpiercer*, and then invited top creators such as Zhang Tianqi and Wu Ziyi to film check-in content on the "Snow Earn Express." This content garnered millions of views as soon as it went live. Short-track speed skating world champion Wang Meng also filmed a promotional video.Soon, topics related to the “Snow Profit Express” surged to the top of Douyin’s trending list, immediately drawing a large number of players to visit the “Snowpiercer” in person.
This highlights a significant potential that had previously gone unnoticed: when popular game mechanics transcend traditional boundaries, they can revitalize classic cultural and tourism IPs through engaging gameplay, transforming "sightseeing tours" into "immersive experiences." This, in turn, drives further word-of-mouth promotion, creating a mutually reinforcing cycle between online and offline content.
Following this same concept, *Peace Elite* has designed a photo spot at the China-Eastern Railway Bridge inspired by the game’s classic “bridge blockade” gameplay, allowing players to use the 98K’s 8x scope to capture the bridge as a backdrop and hunt for the hidden “Lao Liu” Easter eggs scattered throughout the area.Similarly, the airdrop crate element mentioned earlier cleverly borrows the in-game concept of airdrops—"rich rewards, treasures from the sky"—to symbolize Harbin’s "gift" to visitors.
As a result, we saw that Heilongjiang Broadcasting and Television’s *News Night Flight* program was the first to report on the phenomenon of Harbin transforming into a “Peace Elite City.” Media outlets such as *Qilu Evening News*, *Da Xiang News*, and *Hai Bao News* also collectively highlighted the Peace Elite elements blooming throughout Harbin’s streets, noting in their reports that this winter sports collaboration has made the entire city “feel increasingly youthful” and has infused it with new vitality.
This close attention from both Harbin locals and people outside the gaming community clearly demonstrates the mutually reinforcing power of game IPs and the city’s cultural and tourism sectors, and has made *Peacekeeper Elite* a brand-new “theme” on Harbin’s cultural and tourism map this year.
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Bringing the city into the game,
Every day, millions of people discover "Erbin" through *Peace Elite*
The offline events aren’t the only part of this collaboration. Especially for *Peace Elite*, returning to the familiar in-game arena allows them to truly be in their element and amplify their reach even further.The 8×8 km island map serves as a boundless canvas, and the highly productive PUBG Mobile development team has grown accustomed to giving free rein to their creativity, “bombarding” the game’s over 80 million peak daily active players with high-quality content.
The first impression of this collaboration event is that it’s “huge”—as the core feature of the winter major update, *Peace Elite* has prepared a massive amount of content for this collaboration.
For the first time ever, the entire Peace Island has "frozen over," blanketed in a blanket of snow. With the seasonal atmosphere setting the tone, players accustomed to summer experiences have had their perspectives refreshed by Harbin, leaving them with a sense of novelty.
Inspired by downtown Harbin and the Harbin Ice and Snow World, *Peacekeeper Elite* has created two large-scale themed districts. With “digital twin”-level precision, the game has brought six core landmarks from Harbin—including Sofia Square, the Matier Hotel, and Central Street—as well as popular attractions from the Harbin Ice and Snow World, such as the Ferris wheel and the giant slide, into the game, transforming them into playable levels.Players across various platforms have shared “game vs. reality” comparisons, and the results are truly stunning. This overwhelming abundance of grand-scale content delivers the first major wow factor of this collaboration update.
(Comparison of content from the "Peace Elite" winter update with real-life scenes in Harbin. Source: Douyin @Principal)
This was immediately followed by a second wave of excitement—a vast array of “authentic” content crafted with a deep understanding of the cultural characteristics of Northeast China, combined with social-driven, relationship-based sharing, which resonated on a deeper level.
For example, one feature that really stuck with me is the brand-new “pear” item introduced in this version. If you toss it into the snowy landscape, it soon turns into “frozen pears”—a snack unique to Northeast China’s winters. It is precisely in these small yet authentic cultural details that a wealth of information about the region’s customs and traditions is embedded, naturally striking a chord with players. In fact, “Harbin Frozen Pears” was one of the earliest cultural references from Harbin’s tourism industry to go viral nationwide a few years ago.
Gather a few more “gaming buddies” to form a team—it’ll make the experience even more fun. Several groups of players can gather in a room to share a steaming hot pot of “goose stew”;After eating and drinking their fill, they go sledding and slide down ice slides; when they’re tired from playing, they can have a snowball fight in the pristine snow, take a leisurely stroll, or enjoy a romantic “couple’s photo op” at Sofia Square… These activities offer a vivid interpretation of Northeast China’s regional culture.
“Snowball Fight Paradise” Couple Photo Spot
The concept behind *Peace Elite* is to showcase the unique characteristics of Northeast China through authentic human interaction—in this version, players can even earn extra ranking points by teaming up with players from the Northeast. This leverages the “social butterfly” vibe inherent in Northeast China’s “old buddies,” turning them into the best ambassadors of Northeast culture and fostering multi-directional exchanges among regions across the country.
Many fans have been joking on social media, hoping that local Harbin players will lead the “little southern potatoes” on a scoring spree this season. Meanwhile, the “old buddies” from the Northeast have been waving their hands and saying, “I live right around here—I know this place like the back of my hand!”
It can be said that *Peace Elite* isn’t merely engaging in superficial “copy-and-paste” of symbols, but is instead investing significant effort to delve deep into the core characteristics of regional culture and present them to players across the country.In particular, Harbin’s cultural tourism sector has only recently gained widespread public attention and urgently needs to establish a set of representative symbols. Through everything from the construction of the macro-level map to the weaving of cultural details, *Peace Elite* has helped create a collective memory of the most authentic daily life in Northeast China and its most sincere human warmth.
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The coveted prize in the cultural and tourism sector that regions are vying for,
How did Peace Elite pull it off?
Over the years, *Peace Elite* has been pursuing its “City Spotlight Project”—decorating the Canton Tower in Guangzhou, bringing Beijing’s Temple of Heaven into the game, and creating the “Tang Dynasty Xi’an” themed gameplay to celebrate the glory of the Tang Dynasty… From Harbin in the north to Sanya in the south, *Peace Elite* has engaged in in-depth collaborations with cultural and tourism sectors across the country.
It is fair to say that, within the gaming industry, *Peace Elite* is unparalleled in terms of the breadth, depth, and quality of its collaborations with the cultural and tourism sectors. These examples demonstrate that *Peace Elite* possesses a number of overwhelming advantages, making it a highly sought-after partner for cultural and tourism departments across the country.
First, the game’s expansive map design makes *Peace Elite* a natural fit as a “super digital environment” capable of hosting a wide variety of content. The highly flexible environmental architecture makes the entire map extremely adaptable, while *Peace Elite* boasts sophisticated 3D rendering capabilities at the engine level. With a total area of 64 square kilometers, Peace Island can accommodate highly complex and multi-layered urban and cultural tourism content.
Just as this Harbin update recreates multiple local attractions on the map, this digital representation of iconic city landmarks serves as the most direct form of promotion for a city’s cultural and tourism sector.A similar example is the “Tang Dynasty Xi’an” version launched earlier this year in *Peace Elite*, which was on a scale comparable to this Harbin collaboration: *Peace Elite* partnered with Shaanxi’s cultural and tourism authorities to recreate famous landmarks such as Huaqing Palace, the Bell and Drum Towers, and Ziyun Tower on the island map, creating a “Tang Dynasty Xi’an”-themed island that makes players feel as if they have been transported back to the “Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty.”Within the game’s vast map, local tourism highlights were transformed into interactive gameplay features, creating an “authentic experience” that players across the country could enjoy remotely.
Second, the game’s exceptionally high content production capacity allows *Peace Elite* to roll out a large number of themed game modes in quick succession while maintaining a high-quality experience.
Following its standard update cycle, *Peace Elite* releases a major update every two to three months on average. Many of these updates involve simultaneous updates to both Battle Royale and Metro Escape modes, “complete overhauls” of large map sections, and the introduction of new special game modes and items. This amounts to four to five “system-level overhauls” per year. This rigorous production schedule enables *Peace Elite* to respond fully and swiftly to the diverse demands of the cultural and tourism sectors across the country.
Third, the sheer scale of this evergreen game with a massive DAU base makes *Peace Elite* a natural choice as a nationwide advertising platform targeting the younger generation. Not only does it boast a massive user base with a peak of 80 million daily active users, but it also leverages high-quality content and the ability to create both online and offline events to drive more efficient conversions. It goes beyond merely “joining the online buzz”; it can also attract cultural and tourism consumers from across the country who are actively seeking new experiences.
For instance, the massive crowds gathering at *Peace Elite* check-in spots across Harbin following the release of this update serve as the best proof of its advertising impact. We’ve also seen many players and influencers spontaneously launch the “Follow *Peace Elite* to Northeast China” campaign, sharing their check-in experiences online.In the past, countless players have also used *Peace Elite* as a window to experience the dazzling intangible cultural heritage of various regions—such as the Miao embroidery of Pengshui in Chongqing, the lion dances of Foshan, and the kites of Weifang—for the very first time.
Finally, for *Peace Elite*, the game possesses an inherent capacity to actively engage in cultural and tourism collaborations—the diverse cultures across China’s vast landscape can all serve as fertile ground for high-quality game content, enabling *Peace Elite* to consistently fulfill its commitment to players and ultimately ensuring the product’s enduring vitality.This, in turn, creates a mutually beneficial relationship, ensuring that *Peace Elite* will dedicate the time and patience required to continuously invest significant resources in collaborating with local regions to thoroughly and deeply explore cultural and tourism partnerships.
Conclusion
Over the years, *Peace Elite* has often given the impression of being a “cultural tourism content factory”—constantly adapting cultural and tourism highlights from across the country, transplanting them into its vast online gaming world, effectively “sparking interest” among players, and then driving more people to visit these destinations in person. As one of the undisputed leading examples of a long-standing domestic game, *Peace Elite* is undoubtedly an ideal partner capable of fostering strong collaboration with cultural and tourism departments across the country.
With the New Year just around the corner, we at Tea House believe that we’ll soon see *Peace Elite* deck out even more cities in its “Peace-themed attire,” delivering one exciting collaboration after another.
原创文章，作者：游茶妹儿，禁止转载：https://youxichaguan.com/en/archives/194666
