Phantom Blade Zero

Phantom Blade Zero ^[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, as he embarks on a mission to uncover the truth behind the murder of its patriarch.

Phantom Blade Zero
Developer(s)	S-GAME
Publisher(s)	S-GAME
Director(s)	Soulframe Liang [a][4]
Producer(s)	Soulframe Liang [1][5]
Artist(s)	Michael Chang [1][5]
Composer(s)	Caisheng Bo [5][6]
Series	Phantom Blade [2][7]
Engine	Unreal Engine 5
Platform(s)	PlayStation 5 Windows
Genre(s)	Action role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

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

Gameplay

Phantom Blade Zero is an action role-playing game.^[9][10] It is played from a third-person perspective.^[9] The story campaign is strictly a single-player experience, while certain endgame content is available as multiplayer experiences.^[11]

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.^[12][13] The primary weapons consist of various blades.^[14] Each primary weapon has a Power Surge, which is an ultimate ability that costs a Sha-Chi Essense point to activate.^[15] The secondary weapons consist of Phantom Edges,^[16] which comprise a range of diverse weapons such as canons, lances, axes, hammers, and more.^[14] Soulframe Liang described the game's action 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."^[17]

Defensive maneuvers consist of blocking, parrying, and dodging.^[15] 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.^[15] Sha-Chi is a combat resource used for actions related to blocking and non-basic combos.^[15] 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.^[15]

The game is set in a semi-open world,^{[2][18][19][20]} comprising interconnected regions.^[21] Some areas may be initially inaccessible, while progression to these places is non-linear with multiple possible paths.^[21] The story features multiple endings and is influenced by side quests.^[22]

The game offers multiple difficulty options that affect various elements including stats and mechanics.^[23] The extreme mode is unlocked after a first playthrough and provides a high difficulty that modifies enemy AIs, such as removing combos, to replicate a "PvP-like experience" in the gameplay.^[23] The game includes a New Game Plus mode.^[22]

Synopsis

Setting

Phantom Blade Zero is a game based on the wuxia tradition.^[11][17] It introduces specifically kungfupunk, as termed by Soulframe Liang,^[c] to create a distinctive style.^{[2][10][11][13][20][24]} He described it as a subgenre that blends kungfu with steampunk and cyberpunk.^[10] When asked about the challenges of introducing unfamiliar cultural themes to Western audiences, Liang contended 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.^[25]

The game takes place in the Phantom World.^[2][14] It is a universe based on China during the Ming dynasty, with elements of wuxia, steampunk, cyberpunk, dark fantasy, horror, and more.^[14]

Plot

The assassin Soul is framed for the murder of The Order's patriarch.^[2][19][20] He is gravely wounded during the manhunt that followed, but he is kept alive by a mystic healer’s temporary cure—one that will last just 66 days.^[2][19][20] With time running out, Soul sets out to uncover the truth behind the conspiracy.^[2][19][20]

Development

Phantom Blade Zero is a game developed and published by S-GAME.^[8] The studio is based in Beijing, China.^[7][26] According to Soulframe Liang, the game marks 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 introduces a lot of new content.^[27] He presented the game as "the spiritual rebirth of the original Rainblood" upon its announcement.^[2][18] The game is built on Unreal Engine 5.^{[2][11][17][28]}

In an interview published in June 2024, Liang stated that the development team has officially been working on Phantom Blade Zero for about two years.^[29] Throughout 2017, prior to this phase, the studio shared a few early concepts and other preliminary work.^{[30][31][32][33]} This included, for example, concept art of four characters designed by Michael Chang, which was shown during ChinaJoy 2017.^[30] Back in May 2017, they revealed that the game would be developed using Unreal Engine 4.^[34][35] This engine was selected, because the decision was made around Chinese New Year in 2017 to shift from the 2D graphics reminiscent of the previous games to 3D graphics.^[34][35] However, the project was put on hold in 2018 as the environment at the time was considered unfavorable for developing their envisioned kind of game, but interest was revived in 2021 after conditions became more conducive.^[36] In 2021, after learning about the studio's plans to develop large-scale PC and console games, Tencent offered and established financial support along with other necessary assistance through a partnership.^[27] 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.^[27]

S-GAME originally envisioned Phantom Blade Zero as a smaller game, but the attention garnered at the PlayStation Showcase in May 2023 prompted the studio to increase the scale and fully commit to the project.^[37] In an interview shortly after the showcase, Liang said that he felt nervous leading up to the event, but that the international reception boosted their confidence and that years earlier, Feng Ji, the producer of Black Myth: Wukong, encouraged him to create a single-player game that could captivate players worldwide.^[38] Another turning point came with the highly successful launch of Black Myth: Wukong in 2024, which increased interest in Phantom Blade Zero and led to additional funding for the game from investors.^[13] Liang commented that "It's not necessarily changed our [expectations], but maybe it's changed others' expectations and anticipation of us. We did receive more resources, but we also received more pressure from the success of Black Myth: Wukong."^[39] An article published in March 2025 stated that S-GAME currently employs about 100 developers for Phantom Blade Zero.^[40]

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.^[41] 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.^[42] This included, for example, masters from the Shaolin Temple, Emei Mountain, and Guangdong's Southern Lion Troupes, among others.^[17][42] 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 engage in discussions and train together in order to understand the essence of the martial arts.^[42] Motion capture of performances by martial artists was used for the movements of different characters.^[17] Kenji Tanigaki served as the action director for the game.^[2][18][43]

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 also to understand and apply the principles behind them.^[42] For 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."^[44] Furthermore, the action design also emphasized 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.^[17]

In the trailer celebrating the Year of the Snake, S-GAME showcased a battle against a group of seven swordsmen to demonstrate one of the martial arts combat designs.^[42] The developers created a group-based AI system that follows a formation logic, so the enemies fight as an interconnected unit rather than solely as isolated individuals.^[42] They integrated both individual AIs and a collective AI into the system, enabling enemies to attack alone, fight within formations, and interact with each other.^[41] With this design, they aimed to avoid a common issue in many games where enemies either swarm or remain idle during multi-entity encounters.^[41] For the close sword combat, they referenced Emei swordmanship and studied the principles behind offense–defense transitions.^[42]

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.^[41] The team took this approach, because they believed that just shared basic action mechanics would diminish the distinctiveness of each weapon.^[41] 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."^[44]

In addition to the martial arts, the team adapted other Chinese traditions such as southern China's ancestral hall worship rituals, Guangdong's lion dances, Zhejiang's puppetry, Fujian's deity processions, Jiangxi's nuo masks, Sichuan's bianlian (face changing), Beijing opera, China's imperial ceremonies, and more.^[42] Liang said that he hopes to help pass on folk culture and intangible cultural heritage.^[42]

Release

Phantom Blade Zero is scheduled to be released for PC and PlayStation 5.^[19]

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 Yingzhiren Zero (影之刃Zero) in Chinese.^[45] The Chinese title was changed to Yingzhiren Ling (影之刃零) by the time of the game's announcement.^[28]

During the PlayStation Showcase on 24 May 2023, S-GAME released a trailer announcing Phantom Blade Zero.^[20] In January 2025, they released a trailer celebrating the Year of the Snake which revealed that a release date would be announced in 2025.^[6][46]

Reception

Accolades

Phantom Blade Zero won Most Anticipated Game and was nominated for Phenomenon of the Year at the UCG Game Awards 2024.^[47][48]

Notes

1. Liang Qiwei (梁其伟) is known as Soulframe.^[1] He has used the name Soulframe Liang in English-language public communications.^[2][3]
2. Chinese: 影之刃零; pinyin: Yǐngzhīrèn Líng.^[8]
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.^[24]