“Making games is not always a rational pursuit. Sometimes, it is passion and a little madness that give a game its richest flavor.” After years of hype, Phantom Blade Zero is here, and it’s already Steam’s top seller globally. It has even reached the number-two spot for concurrent player count, topping everything but Counter-Strike 2 – and it’s still climbing. Tom scored it a perfect ten in our review, dubbing it “a new action RPG gold standard.” All those months of wondering whether it could deliver on its promise have been answered, and Game Director ‘Soulframe’ Liang says he’s immensely proud of the combined team effort.
Liang recently told us how senior PlayStation executives were blown away by their first glimpse of Phantom Blade Zero, but he now reveals that it started as something much smaller. His first game as a student, RPG Maker creation Rainblood: Town of Death, established the fundamentals for his own fantasy world, “rooted in traditional Chinese wuxia but infused with elements such as body modification, parallel worlds, and more.”
“Back then, I had no idea where my life or career would lead,” Liang admits. “Making games had simply been a source of comfort while I studied abroad, but before I knew it, it had become one of the most important parts of my life.” Fast forward to three years ago, when it made its big debut during a PlayStation Showcase, and S-Game took a chance and leapt on the reveal’s popularity, canceling its other in-development projects to pour everything into Phantom Blade Zero.
While it bears passing familiarity to the likes of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, there’s a softer approach to Phantom Blade Zero. Bigger bosses might have multiple stages, for example, but they offer checkpoints so you aren’t forced to start from square one. Liang explains the goal was to create “a game that everyone who loves wuxia and spectacular action can enjoy. After all, this is a game. We want as many people as possible to have fun, unwind, and enjoy the experience, while offering an extra rush of adrenaline to those who seek a challenge.”
Liang promises that you will taste victory: “Phantom Blade Zero exists to make you feel powerful and incredibly cool. No matter what enemy stands before you, you will defeat them in the end.” He caveats that this doesn’t mean the game is a pushover, however. “That feeling has to come from more than simply telling you how strong you are. It has to come through every slash of your blade, every block, every dodge, and every dazzling execution shaped by the game’s brutal aesthetic. Your enemies are powerful so that your own strength can feel even greater.”
The results are already visible: Phantom Blade Zero is Steam’s top seller, and lest there be any question whether its success is being carried by its developer’s homeland of China, it’s number one in many other territories, including the United States and United Kingdom as well. Concurrent players have already passed the half-million mark within the first few hours, and are continuing to climb, with far higher numbers absolutely possible as the weekend arrives.
Liang might be the face of Phantom Blade Zero’s creation, but he’s quick to share the plaudits. “I am deeply grateful to the team for their understanding and support,” he writes, recalling the times he called them together to deliver “a suffocating decision” such as “taking apart something everyone had already carefully built and polished, then rebuilding it, or even abandoning it,” even when that meant “sometimes letting go of content that had already taken an enormous amount of time and effort.”
The aspect Liang believes was most important was the mindset of his coworkers. “Beyond skill and experience, is there also a certain madness, a certain obsession?” He says over the course of development, “it started to feel like we ourselves were becoming the kind of people you would find in a wuxia story.” In particular, he highlights how “several of our key battles were created by a few young teammates in their twenties,” and then singles out some of the other key influences on the look and feel of Phantom Blade Zero.
“Our Art Director, Michael Chang, single-handedly drew the concept art for every character and most of our environments,” Liang notes. “Then there is our Music Director, Caisheng Bo, who has never been one to hold back. He created more than ten hours of music almost entirely by himself. Aside from a few special instruments and vocal performances, he handled everything, including composition, performance, and mixing. He also guided the implementation of the music in the game.”
Liang emphasizes the work S-Game has done to respond to player feedback from hands-on previews and show-floor demos. This includes audio settings that let you “adjust the tone of clashing blades so you can tailor how each clash sounds and feels,” flexible control remapping for PC players, and support for “all major screen aspect ratios, including 16:89 monitors and TVs, 16:10 laptops and handhelds, and ultrawide displays with aspect ratios beyond 3:1.”
For those who are starting their journey, Liang shares a few tips. In particular, he notes that the recent Nvidia 621.01 driver can cause “some performance instability,” and says that “version 617.42 currently offers the best experience in Phantom Blade Zero.” He recommends rolling back to this and sticking with it until the next driver update, “which we expect to arrive soon.”
Additionally, while the day-one patch “significantly improves ray tracing and path tracing performance,” he encourages players on lower-end hardware to switch off the feature if they need to. “We’ve spent a great deal of time refining the game’s rasterized visuals so that each environment stays true to our art direction even with ray tracing turned off.” S-Game has “extensively tested the game on mid-range and lower-end PCs, as well as handhelds,” he confirms.
Phantom Blade Zero is out now, priced at $59.99 / £49.99. You can grab it here via Steam. “Its roots lie in the indie game I created during my student years, at a time of hardship and uncertainty,” Liang concludes, “but it also holds everything we have been able to give. This is a game of immense scale, made with all the passion in our hearts. It is a gift from a small group of gamers who just happen to be developers, to every gamer who shares our love for gaming.”
On a personal note, I can’t wait to get started – our previews and the final review were all handled by other members of the team, but everything I’ve ever heard from them has only made me more desperate to put hands on the game for myself. If you’re also setting out on Soul’s adventure in the days to come, Tom’s put together a staggeringly comprehensive rundown of all the Phantom Blade Zero bosses you’ll fight along the way.
