Phantom Blade Zero Already Feels Like the Next Black Myth Wukong
A great first impression.
Looking at the trailers for Phantom Blade Zero, it’s easy to think the game looks good, but it seems doubtful that the intense action will actually translate just as well to gameplay. But you’d be wrong, and after playing an hour of the game it’s made maybe one of the best impressions I’ve ever had demoing a game. Phantom Blade Zero is a riveting action game that feels every bit as fluid and responsive as the cult classics from Platinum Games, with an extremely evocative sense of style. But perhaps what’s even more exciting is how passionate the team behind the game feels — how they want to “rediscover” the feeling of action games from yesteryear, reimagined with modern technology. It already feels like it could be the next surprise hit, in the vein of Black Myth Wukong.
Phantom Blade Zero comes from the Chinese studio S-Game, responsible for making a mobile game series of the same name — with three games releasing on mobile devices in China. But before that Soulframe Liang, the CEO of S-Game, created an indie game called Rain Blood entirely on his own in RPG Maker. While Phantom Blade Zero carries on ideas from the mobile games, its story is actually based on the original narrative of Rain Blood.
The game first debuted in a May 2023 PlayStation State of Play, where it drew enormous attention because of its distinct look and extreme fast-paced combat. At that time, it actually ended up being the second most-watched trailer of the show, right behind Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
“We were not supposed to reveal the game so early,” Liang says, “ We had been developing the game for just one year. A studio from China coming from nowhere and suddenly doing something like this, everyone felt excited. We were shocked, because the game we were planning to do was something smaller.”
Getting featured in that State of Play seemingly set off a chain reaction of events for Phantom Blade, as the game garnered more attention — which in turn led S-Game to significantly invest in it, drastically increasing the scale and fully committing to the project. The second hit came at Summer Game Fest 2024, where Phantom Blade closed out the show with a new trailer as the final big reveal. Ironically, Liang tells Inverse that the team had no idea they were going to close out the show, only that the trailer was featured — and seeing it as the final setpiece shocked the team.
Phantom Blade has a stunning art style that blends multiple genres into something unique.
Expectations grew even bigger with last year’s release of Black Myth Wukong, developed by Chinese Studio Game Science. Black Myth blew expectations out of the water, and became the best-selling game of the year with over 20 million copies sold, as well as going on to win multiple awards. In Liang’s mind, Black Myth was a key change for Chinese AAA development, that games like Phantom Blade can now capitalize on.
“All the production resources and experiences have been there for years, because China is the biggest gaming market,” Liang says, “The success of Black Myth just gave confidence to everyone. So now we know, okay, we’re not able to just do mobile games, but we can also be successful in the AAA or PC market. Everyone feels excited.”
The success of Black Myth, again, led to more interest in Phantom Blade, and the game received more funding from investors — which also means more expectations. So S-Game wanted to do more than just impress with trailers, and this led to the studio hosting three demo events within China, and three in surrounding countries. And that was a good idea, as getting your hands on the game really makes a difference.
Phantom Blade feels a bit like a fusion of Dark Souls and more traditional combo-based action games, like Devil May Cry. In the game, you control Soul, an elite assassin who serves a mysterious organization called The Order, and decides to rebel against their control. You have two primary weapons and two secondary weapons in combat, with each one having a completely distinct set of moves.
While bosses are a major focus of Phantom Blade, it’s not quite a boss rush game — with exploration in between major battles.
There’s a massive emphasis on parrying and dodging attacks, as combat plays out at a blisteringly fast pace. Really, the best comparison is those Platinum action games, like Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising. You need to use your own combos against enemies while being ready to adjust on the fly to their counterattacks. Attacks that flash red need to be dodge, while attacks that flash blue can be deflected and parried. Getting the exact right timing on either of these plays a snazzy animation and lets you turn the momentum back on the enemy.
So combat becomes a game of swapping between attack and defense, adjusting to enemy attack patterns, and weaving your secondary weapons into all of that. You also build a resource to use special attacks, and again each weapon has its own unique special attack — like a stronger parry for one sword, or a lengthy combo that can momentarily stun enemies.
It’s genuinely a bit hard to put into words just how smooth and satisfying Phantom Blade feels to play. Pulling off these parries and dodges feels effortless, and there’s clearly a lot of thought put into the flow of battles, how engrossing they feel in the moment. Each weapon I tried felt like it filled a unique role in battle, from dual chakrams that let you fight at range to a snake sword that extends and moves. There’s also a lot of environmental interaction during fights, such as a boss battle where I could run up pillars to dodge attacks, then come crashing down with an attack that I could turn into a bigger combo.
During my hands-on time I got to play the previous demo S-Game used in its demo tour, and a new “Year of the Snake” demo that featured a two-phase boss battle. This battle had me going up against the Disciples of the Seven Stars, fighting off multiple enemies at once. But a lot of the actual mechanics are made to be cinematic, like when you dodge a special attack and jump on top of all the enemies blades, then deliver a roundhouse kick to send them all staggering. Feedback from previous demos also caused the team to create an “Extreme” difficulty mode, that doesn’t just bump up enemy health but integrally changes the way enemies act, making everything much more aggressive.
As I said earlier, there’s a unique sense of style that permeates the combat of Phantom Blade, and it’s meticulously woven into the actual mechanics to make every battle feel like a climactic fight from a kung fu movie — and that’s entirely intentional.
There’s a certain cinematic flair to Phantom Blade’s combat that makes it feel extra satisfying.
Liang tells Inverse that there are essentially three core pillars, and inspirations the game is built around. Combat inspired by action games like Devil May Cry, exploration and world design that emulates Dark Souls, and a cinematic and emotional story inspired by Resident Evil. There’s a wealth of influences that extend past games, too.
“You can easily see this as something like John Wick set in 16th-century China,” says Liang, “It’s a mix of traditional culture and something new, a way to reduce the cultural barriers for players. We want to remove obstacles for audiences outside of China.”
Phantom Blade is obviously heavily inspired by Wuxia, a genre of Chinese film that heavily revolves around martial arts. But Liang says the studio wanted to mix those traditional Chinese elements with styles like steampunk and cyberpunk, to create something that feels entirely distinct and never done before — something he’s branded “kungfupunk.”
And while the ambitions of Phantom Blade are certainly lofty, Liang and S-Game actually see this game as a way to get back to basics, to re-embrace the fun that single-player action games used to have in a bygone era.
“We want to rediscover games from the PS1 and PS2 eras, but with modern technology. Big budget actor stories, produced by a group of passionate and experienced people, where everything feels coherent from the very beginning,” Liang says, “From the moment you press start, to the ending staff list, everything in between is super coherent as an art piece.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise, then, is that Liang says everything shown off for Phantom Blade so far has been entirely from side content — nothing has been shown of the main story. The studio knew that the key elements of the game was its action, and that’s what they wanted to show first and foremost — prove to players that it felt as good to play as it looked. But Liang says there’s a lot of exploration, level design, and cinematic story planned around that action — and that’ll be shown more as time goes on.
Phantom Blade’s combat feels challenging, but fair. Giving you a variety of options to use in battles. According to Liang, there’ll be over two-dozen weapons in the full game.
Phantom Blade Zero feels like a game coming at just the right time, with the perfect momentum behind both the action renaissance and a booming Chinese development market. After playing just a single hour it’s shot to nearly the top of my most anticipated list, and I spent days thinking about how I simply wanted to play more. It’s rare that a game clicks that instantly for me. But what has me equally interested in the game is how grounded the team at S-Game is being about the whole thing, giving off the confidence that the studio might just pull it off.
“I think one good team for our thing is that there are many young people, even our lead combat artist is just out of school. It’s a special working culture because we don’t have much experience with AAA development in China — so why don’t we just build everything from the ground up?” Liang says, “We have to keep calm, be realistic, and be careful about positive feedback. Audiences encouraging us doesn’t mean we’re there yet; we have to remind everyone of that. So we’re keeping on moving forward and doing more, something even crazier. We just keep on learning, and keep on evolving all the time.”
