Phantom Blade Zero

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Phantom Blade Zero
Developer(s)S-GAME
Publisher(s)S-GAME
Director(s)Soulframe Liang [a][4]
Producer(s)Soulframe Liang [1]
Artist(s)Michael Chang [1]
Composer(s)Caisheng Bo [5]
SeriesPhantom Blade [6]
EngineUnreal Engine 5
Platform(s)
Genre(s)Action role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Phantom Blade Zero (影之刃零)[b] is an upcoming wuxia action role-playing game developed and published by S-GAME. The player takes on the role of Soul, an elite assassin in the service of a mysterious and powerful organization known as The Order, embarking on a mission to uncover the truth behind the murder of its patriarch.

The game is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5 and Windows. The release date has not been announced yet.

Gameplay

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Phantom Blade Zero is an action role-playing game.[8][9] It is played from a third-person perspective.[8] The story campaign is strictly a single-player experience, while certain endgame content is available as multiplayer experiences.[10]

The player controls Soul, an elite assassin serving a mysterious and powerful organization known as The Order.[2] He carries two primary weapons and two secondary weapons.[11][12] The primary weapons consist of various blades.[13] Each primary weapon has a Power Surge, which is an ultimate ability, costing a Sha-Chi Essense point to activate.[14] The secondary weapons consist of Phantom Edges,[15] which comprise a range of diverse weapons such as canons, lances, axes, hammers, and more.[13]

Soulframe Liang described the game's combat as "In Phantom Blade Zero, combat happens at an extremely fast pace. Movement is rapid, attack frequency is high, and you can perform maneuvers like running along walls, teleporting behind enemies, and executing sudden cinematic finishers that dynamically shift the camera to wide or close-up angles, making it feel like you’re in a Kung Fu movie."[16]

Defensive maneuvers consist of blocking, parrying, and dodging.[14] However, enemies can do Brutal Moves that drain a lot of Sha-Chi when blocked and Killer Moves that can not be blocked or parried.[14] Sha-Chi is a combat resource used for actions related to blocking and non-basic combos.[14] A Ghostep is triggered when a Brutal Move is parried or a Killer Move is dodged right before it lands, which positions the player character behind the enemy.[14]

The game is set in a semi-open world,[2][17][18][19] comprising interconnected regions.[20] Some regions may initially be inaccessible, but can be reached through a non-linear progression with multiple possible paths.[20] The story features multiple endings and is influenced by side quests.[21]

The game offers multiple difficulty options, which alters several elements including stats and mechanics in higher passes.[22] The extreme mode, which is unlocked after a first playthrough, provides a high difficulty that modifies enemy AIs, such as the removal of combos, to give a "PvP-like experience" to the gameplay.[22] The game includes a New Game Plus mode.[21]

Synopsis

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Setting

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Phantom Blade Zero adapts wuxia.[10][16][17][23] It introduces specifically kungfupunk, as Soulframe Liang terms it,[c] to create a distinctive style.[2][9][10][12][19] He described it as a subgenre that blends kungfu with steampunk and cyberpunk.[9] In addressing questions about the challenges of introducing unfamiliar cultural themes to Western audiences, Liang contends that although such themes may present initial challenges, games that deliver high quality and enjoyable experiences can turn these themes into an advantage that draws in players.[24]

The game takes place in the Phantom World.[2][13] It is a universe based on China during the Ming dynasty, with elements of wuxia, steampunk, cyberpunk, dark fantasy, horror, and more.[13]

Plot

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The assassin Soul is framed for the murder of The Order's patriarch.[2][18][19] He is fatally wounded in the manhunt that ensued, but a mystic healer manages to keep him alive with a cure that lasts for 66 days.[2][18][19] With time running out, he must uncover the truth behind the conspiracy.[2][18][19]

Development

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Phantom Blade Zero is a game developed and published by S-GAME.[7] Soulframe Liang said that the game would be a return to its origins, drawing from the story foundations of his indie games Rainblood: Town of Death and Rainblood 2: City of Flame, and incorporate a lot of new content.[25] He characterized the game as "the spiritual rebirth of the original Rainblood" when he introduced it.[2][17] The game is built on Unreal Engine 5.[2][10][16][26]

Liang, during an interview in June 2024, stated that the development team had been officially working on Phantom Blade Zero for about two years.[27] Prior to this phase, they revealed a few early concepts and other preliminary work.[28][29][30][31] This included, for example, concept art of four characters designed by Michael Chang, which was shown during ChinaJoy 2017.[28] In May 2017, they revealed that the game would be developed using Unreal Engine.[32][33] Liang explained that around Chinese New Year in 2017, with the support from the core team, he decided to shift from the 2D graphics reminiscent of their previous games to 3D graphics.[32][33] In 2021, after learning about the studio's plans to develop expansive PC and console games, Tencent proposed and established a cooperation in which they provided financial support along with other nessesary assistance.[25] These plans were for the action role-playing games Phantom Blade Zero and Stellar Saga, the latter depicting a story in space about humanity's struggle for survival amid a high-dimensional war between advanced civilizations.[25]

S-GAME initially planned Phantom Blade Zero as a smaller game, but the attention garnered for it at the PlayStation Showcase held in May 2023 led to the studio deciding to fully commit to the project and increase its scale, significantly investing in the game.[34] Another turning point came with the success of the 2024 game Black Myth: Wukong developed by Game Science, which increased interest in Phantom Blade Zero and attracted additional funding from investors.[12] During an interview in June 2023, Liang remarked that years earlier, Feng Ji, the producer of Black Myth: Wukong, had encouraged him to create a single-player game that could captivate players worldwide, but that he (Liang) still felt worried about it until the showcase.[35] In an article published in March 2025, S-GAME was reported to be currently employing about 100 developers working on Phantom Blade Zero.[36]

Kenji Tanigaki serves as the action director for Phantom Blade Zero.

The developers aimed to design the game's combat based on Chinese martial arts, drawing inspiration from classic Hong Kong martial arts films and working closely with martial arts instructors.[37] For the action design process, the team embarked on a nationwide search to trace the roots of Chinese martial arts and visited their inheritors throughout the country.[38] This included, for example, masters from the Shaolin Temple, Emei Mountain, Guangdong's Southern Lion Troupes, and others.[16][38] Liang commented that they wanted to create authentic martial arts action, emphasizing the importance of immersing themselves by going to the communities, mountains, and temples to train and discuss together in order to understand the essence of the martial arts.[38] Motion capture of performances by several martial artists was used for the movements of different characters.[16] Kenji Tanigaki serves as the action director for the game.[2][17]

A crucial aspect in the action design was that the gameplay embodied the philosophies of Chinese martial arts.[1] For instance, Liang explained that while defense might mean making a simple blocking motion in other contexts, Chinese martial arts traditionally involve responding to the opponent's movement—defending while simultaneously attacking.[1] He said that their goal is not just for players to perform martial arts moves, but to understand and apply the principles behind them.[38] As an example, a journalist who played a game demo described his experience comparatively to kungfu and wuxia films as "The style of these fights often sees attack bouncing off attack, rather than a push-pull of more structured offense and defense. I was overreacting to each enemy's swings—actually just meant to deflect my own blows—as if they were incoming attacks. What makes for dazzling cinema can be a bit harder to read in a game, though the motion capture in Phantom Blade Zero looks just as cool as the real thing, a testament to the experts S-Game worked with."[39] Furthermore, the action design placed emphasis on the fluidity of movements through a rich animation set for elements such as transitions (to provide a natural flow from one action into the next), contextual execution moves, dynamic environmental interactions, and multi-target combat mechanics.[16]

Each of the game's weapons was designed with unique action mechanics to ensure they remained novel to use rather than limited by common weapon types.[37] The team took this approach, because they believed that shared basic action mechanics would diminish the distinctiveness of each weapon.[37] For instance, a journalist who played a game demo noted how some weapons had entirely unique mechanics, giving the example of the Soft Snake Sword as a weapon that "has a different, more aggressive parry than other weapons but slows down your movement, making it a better counter for a one-on-one boss fight than a gang."[39]

In addition to the martial arts, the team incorporated other Chinese traditions such as southern China's ancestor worship rituals, Guangdong's lion dances, Zhejiang's puppetry, Fujian's deity processions, Jiangxi's Nuo masks, Sichuan's Bianlian, Beijing opera, and more.[38] Liang commented that he hopes to pass on folk culture and intangible cultural heritage.[38]

In January 2025, S-GAME released a trailer celebrating the upcoming Year of the Snake, which showcased gameplay of a boss battle to highlight the combat system.[37] This particular boss consists of seven swordsmen, each controlled by an individual AI and a shared group AI, allowing them to act independently, work in formations, and interact with each other.[37] The demonstrated martial arts is based on Emei swordsmanship.[38] In the second phase of the boss battle, with one of the swordsmen suspended by strings, their fighting style draws inspiration from Chinese puppetry but in an exaggerated form.[5]

Release

[edit]

Phantom Blade Zero is scheduled to release for PC and PlayStation 5.[18]

During an anniversary concert for the Rainblood series on 22 November 2016, S-GAME revealed that the series would be remade with an extended plot in a new game codenamed Phantom Blade Zero (影之刃Zero).[40]

During the PlayStation Showcase on 24 May 2023, S-GAME released a trailer announcing Phantom Blade Zero.[19] In January 2025, they released a trailer celebrating the upcoming Year of the Snake which revealed that a release date would be announced in 2025.[41][42]

Reception

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Accolades

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Phantom Blade Zero won Most Anticipated Game and was nominated for Phenomenon of the Year at the UCG Game Awards 2024.[43][44]

Notes

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  1. ^ Liang Qiwei (梁其伟) is known by his nickname Soulframe.[1] He appears as Soulframe Liang in his public communications.[2][3]
  2. ^ Chinese: 影之刃零; pinyin: Yǐngzhīrèn Líng.[7]
  3. ^ Soulframe Liang uses the term kungfupunk in English,[2] but he interchangeably uses the terms wuxiapunk (武侠朋克) and kungfupunk (功夫朋克) in Chinese.[23]

References

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  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liang, Soulframe (24 May 2023). "Phantom Blade Zero: a new beginning in a long journey". PlayStation.Blog. Archived from the original on 12 February 2025.
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  4. ^ Gerblick, Jordan (26 July 2024). ""Everyone is looking at Black Myth Wukong": Phantom Blade Zero director expects the most-wishlisted game on Steam to be a breakthrough moment for China". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on 6 August 2024.
  5. ^ a b 何者 (22 January 2025). "《影之刃零》蛇年新春实机PV公开，双蛇大破七星阵！". 遊俠網 (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 22 January 2025.
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  35. ^ 奕剑者柴王 (9 June 2023). "我们跟《影之刃零》制作人聊了聊，但是没见到兰博基尼". GamerSky (in Chinese). pp. 1–2. Archived from the original on 25 February 2025.
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  39. ^ a b Fenlon, Wes (27 March 2025). "Chinese action game Phantom Blade Zero didn't click for me until I realized its deep commitment to wuxia film authenticity meant I had to relearn how swords work". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 29 March 2025.
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  42. ^ Nightingale, Ed (22 January 2025). "Phantom Blade Zero trailer shows fresh gameplay, but it's still without a release date". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 22 January 2025.
  43. ^ For the nominations, see "UCG游戏大赏2024全奖项提名公开！". Ultra Console Game (in Chinese). 27 December 2024. Archived from the original on 4 April 2025. For the results, see "UGA2024圆满结束！全奖项获奖游戏和厂商公开！". Ultra Console Game (in Chinese). 15 January 2025. Archived from the original on 5 April 2025.
  44. ^ For the results, see 沁雅畅慧 (16 January 2025). "「UCG 游戏大赏 2024」颁奖典礼圆满结束". Game Bonfire (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 21 January 2025.
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