Phantom Blade Zero Preview – This might be the most insane action game I’ve played all year

There are certain games where you pick up the controller and immediately know that the developers have absolutely nailed what they were trying to achieve. Phantom Blade Zero was one of those games for me.

I went into my four hour hands-on session expecting an impressive action game – after all, we’d already seen the trailers with its ridiculously elaborate combat, enormous bosses and dark wuxia world. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how fluid the whole thing feels when you’re actually controlling it.

And then the heavy metal started playing.

Phantom Blade Zero opens with Soul training alongside his friend Zuo Shang. It initially feels like a fairly traditional tutorial, allowing you to learn the rhythm of combat and get accustomed to the game’s defensive mechanics, including its blue and red parries. Then the training ends and you’re suddenly fighting Zuo Shang for real.

What follows is a full-on fight to the death, the two warriors trading blows while heavy rock riffs kick in. The choreography is spectacular, but there’s something particularly satisfying about the way the combat flows from one attack into another.

Eventually, both characters stab each other directly through the heart. Yes, this is the opening.

A doctor then gives Soul a choice. One heart will allow him to live, but he will lose his emotions. The other will allow him to retain those emotions, but he will only have 66 days left to live. It is a wonderfully ridiculous introduction to a game that seems determined to constantly ask how much insanity it can cram into a single encounter.

The 66-day premise isn’t just there for dramatic effect. Soul is an elite assassin who has been framed for murdering his master and is left with only a limited amount of time to uncover the conspiracy surrounding him. The game’s various difficulty options play with that concept in different ways, with the particularly brutal Sixty-Six Days mode designed to make death carry considerably more weight.

There has been a lot of discussion about Donnie Yen’s involvement with Phantom Blade Zero, and after playing it, I completely understand why S-GAME has made such a big deal about it. Yen serves as a creative consultant on the game and has also contributed facial and motion capture work, helping bring the game’s kung fu influences to life.

It’s little surprise, then, that the combat genuinely feels like you’re controlling an action movie. It’s fast, responsive and incredibly well directed without feeling like you’re simply watching a sequence play out. The parry system gives you plenty to learn, with different attacks requiring different responses, and the enemies become increasingly demanding as you progress.

And then the game throws a cart chase at you. While fighting. At high speed.

It’s one of those moments where you stop thinking about whether the game is mechanically sensible and just enjoy the spectacle. You’re hurtling through the environment while dealing with enemies, and the whole sequence feels like something that would normally be reserved for a ridiculously expensive Hong Kong action movie.

Phantom Blade Zero still gives you an impressive amount of freedom in how you approach that combat. Weapons can be upgraded using materials, but there’s a system I particularly appreciated: you can refund your weapon upgrades and recover the materials you’ve spent. That might sound like a small thing, but it removes one of my biggest frustrations with many weapon upgrade systems. If I spend hours upgrading a sword only to discover that I actually prefer an axe, I don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted all those resources.

With more than 30 main weapons and a sizeable collection of secondary Phantom Edges, that flexibility is going to be important. And these aren’t simply different weapons with slightly different numbers attached to them.

After defeating Peng Meng, the Axe Master, I gained access to his weapon, the Dread Axe. Beyond changing how I approached combat, having the axe also allowed me to access areas that had previously been sealed off. That’s the sort of progression I like. The weapon isn’t simply stronger than what I had before, it gives me another reason to explore.

There are also accessories that can modify Soul’s abilities. One example I encountered was Hunter Insight, which increases damage dealt and guard break against attacking enemies by 15%. It’s another layer to the combat system that should allow players to build Soul around the way they actually like to play.

And if you think all of this sounds like a lot, the weapons get considerably more ridiculous. The Fanatic’s Broken Blade is one of my favourites, from what I saw. It allows Soul to consume alcohol during combat, giving him access to ranged sword attacks while adopting a drunken fighting style, as if being a kung fu action game wasn’t already cool enough. Then there’s the Outlaw War Blade, which takes the opposite approach, as a heavy-hitting weapon that drains health for its heavy attacks, and restores it with your regular hits.

The variety is impressive, and knowing that these weapons were designed by Donnie Yen’s team makes a lot of sense when you see how elaborate some of their movesets are.

There is more to Phantom Blade Zero than simply murdering everything that moves, though. Soul’s journey takes him through the Wulin, a world combining wuxia martial arts with machinery, occult elements and a distinctly grim aesthetic. S-GAME has previously described this mixture as “kungfupunk”, and it is an increasingly appropriate description the more I see of the game.

Some of the characters you’ll encounter are Mistwalkers, people who were once good before becoming corrupted and turning to evil. Peng Meng is one such example.

And then there are the bosses.

The Hunt, the Sixth Fold Scythe, was effectively a skill check for everything I’d learned up to that point. The first phase was difficult enough, but the second phase was where things got serious. I died. A lot.

But here’s something I absolutely loved: when I died during the second phase, I didn’t have to go back and fight through the first phase again. I was immediately back where I’d left off. That might sound insignificant, but I love games that respect my time. If I’ve already demonstrated that I can beat the first phase, forcing me to repeat it every time I fail the second doesn’t make me a better player. It just makes me frustrated. Phantom Blade Zero understands that.

I also got to see another boss from later in the game, Bai Chilian, Lady of the Twin Serpents, who becomes the Sacrificial Serpent. She was brutal. The Lion Dance Grandmaster also kicked my arse – there is no sophisticated way of putting it.

I was beaten repeatedly, but instead of making me want to walk away, it made me want to try again. There’s something incredibly satisfying about a boss fight that feels difficult because you haven’t quite figured it out yet and the approach you need to take, rather than simply because its health bar is enormous.

There are also some beautifully animated cutscenes scattered throughout the experience. One sequence I encountered after resting at a Crane Bell offered a glimpse into Soul’s past, with the game’s more cinematic presentation showing that S-GAME isn’t relying on its combat to carry the entire experience.

The Crane Bells themselves are another interesting part of the game’s structure, allowing Soul to rest and advance the time of day. Given that Soul’s entire existence is built around having only 66 days remaining, even seemingly mundane actions such as this can carry greater significance.

And that brings me back to the biggest thing I took away from Phantom Blade Zero. This isn’t simply a game that looks spectacular. It plays spectacularly as well. There is a danger with games built around cinematic combat that the spectacle can overwhelm the actual mechanics. Phantom Blade Zero doesn’t feel like that. Underneath all the heavy metal, the ridiculous weapons, explosive set pieces and enemies who appear to have been designed specifically to ruin my evening is a combat system that demands patience, timing and practice. And I haven’t even scratched the surface of what the final game is going to offer.

Phantom Blade Zero is due to release in just a few weeks on 29th October for PS5 and PC, and after spending time with it, I can’t wait. That is, admittedly, so I can get my revenge on the Lion Dance Grandmaster. He may have won this round, but I’m coming back for him.

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