“Phantom Blade Zero is currently in the intense, final stages of development. With the time we have left, we are pouring every available resource into pushing every aspect of the game to the absolute limit of our capabilities. We are fully aware that a profound technological revolution is unfolding around us. However, to this day, every single piece of content in our game has been crafted by the hands of real artists. We will not use AI visual tech that could alter our artists’ original creative intent.

“Our character models are built upon 3D scans of our phenomenal cast, who also provided the facial capture performances. The voice acting in both Chinese and English has been meticulously refined by our dedicated actors and directors, complete with full lip-syncing for both languages. The prototypes for our weapons are drawn from the vast arsenal of traditional Chinese weaponry. Sometimes, to better understand how a weapon’s weight and length impact movement, we have master swordsmiths forge real replicas.”

The studio went on to note that it had hired more than twenty highly experienced martial artists to motion capture the game’s combat. Also, to ensure the “most authentic kung fu techniques,” it consulted “directly with the masters and inheritors of traditional martial arts schools. When we needed authentic swordplay, we invited sword masters from Mount Emei; when we needed lion dance choreography, we brought in lion dance masters from Guangdong.” Its efforts certainly paid off, judging by the release date trailer which highlighted a lion dancer-like boss.

To help create the world for Phantom Blade Zero, the developers visited “many stunning locations across China, from ancestral halls in Fujian to ancient towns in Zhejiang, and even old steel factories in Beijing.”

Even the in-game guiding maps aren’t AI-generated. In fact, S-Game has confirmed that they aren’t even digital paintings. Rather, they are hand-drawn, using Chinese brushes and Xuan paper (crafted from rice straw and Tara Wing-Celtis or Blue Sandalwood bark, and often employed for calligraphy and painting). What’s more, the developer even roped in “young artists from the Chinese Painting department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA)” to draw them.

“We firmly believe that human artistry is not merely a means for creating value; it is the value itself,” it explained. “S-Game didn’t just hire a group of developers to make a game; rather, in our pursuit of continuously building an exceptional, passionate team, we decided to make a game that everyone here could be deeply proud of.”

Phantom Blade Zero is currently in development for PC and PS5, and is slated to be console-exclusive to Sony’s platform for at least a full year. It launches on September 9th and while an Xbox Series X/S version isn’t confirmed, it hasn’t been ruled out entirely either.

All three of these games got trailers showing off how they would make use of Nvidia’s RTX and DLSS 4 features. Resident Evil Requiem, for instance, will be capable of running at over 200 frames per second with path tracing enabled thanks to Multi Frame Generation. Phantom Blade Zero will similarly launch with all of these features available on day one of its September 9 release, and 007: First Light will be able to make use of these features to get improved visual details while still maintaining high and steady frame rates.

Similar videos have also been released for Active Matter, DEFECT, and Screamer, which you can check out below. These videos showcase gameplay making use of features like path tracing and ray-traced global illumination with high frame rates thanks to the use of DLSS 4 and technology like Multi Frame Generation. All of these showcases were recorded with the games in question running at 4K.

A number of developers from IO Interactive, including franchise art director Rasmus Poulsen, principal engineer and development manager Henrik Schlichter, and the studio’s CTO Ulas Karademir spoke about how 007: First Light will make use of these features.

“The primary tech that we are developing together with Nvidia is all the DLSS features, especially of DLSS4,” said Schlichter. “Everything from Multi Frame Generation to Super Resolution is incredibly useful and something that we have integrated very very closely into the game. We’ve made a new volumetric smoke system that really tries to push the limits of how we can represent smoke and fog and explosions in the game. And this is something that’s not been done anywhere before.”

“Having software and hardware working together and getting the best out of it while using these techniques really helps us to push the limits,” said Karademir. “To give us the freedom that our designers can really go beyond the limitations of the hardware.”

Phantom Blade Zero creator “Soulframe” Liang also spoke about some of the PC-exclusive features that will be available in the action title, thanks to the collaboration between developer S-Game and Nvidia.

“The very good thing for PC gamers is they have different ways to experience the game,” said Liang. “I think RTX and DLSS 4 are the main features that enhance our game a lot. The rain is one of our core environmental features, so having a convincing presentation of anything in the rain is important, and we count on ray tracing systems for this. It’s difficult to maintain the frame rate while you have the frame rate while you have top notch graphics. So DLSS 4 and other Nvidia technologies support us to get stable frame rates while getting the best graphics.”

007: First Light was originally slated for release in February. Last month, however, IO Interactive announced that it is pushing back the title’s release to May 27 instead. The earliest of these releases is going to be Resident Evil Requiem, which is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 27. DEFECT and Active Matter will be coming out later this year, while Screamer is coming out relatively earlier; on March 26.

Liang got this advice from the studio right after The Game Awards 2025, where the developer had walked away with many awards, including Game of the Year, for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. “Pressure is good,” Liang said. “I talked with the team behind Expedition 33, they had a lot of trophies last night.” As for approaching Sandfall Interactive for advice, he said, “One of the most important and interesting things [Sandfall Interactive] told us was that for the last nine months, the most important thing is to delete things. To cut things [from the game] and to polish the rest.”

He went on to refer to this as being “a good idea,” and that “I will take that advice.”

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche had spoken about keeping the scope of the game narrow, and how it helped development as well as in garnering a positive critical reception on launch. He spoke about this when he was asked back in October how development on the game would have been affected if the studio had unlimited resources.

“I don’t think we would have wanted to radically add unnecessary content or change the overall scope of our game though – I think part of the reason some fans enjoyed their time with our game was how we tried to respect the players’ time by not artificially padding out the game time excessively,” said Broche. “In some ways, having a limited budget and resources is helpful to narrow down the scope of a title and distil the vision to the core elements that make it great, and maybe having unlimited scope and budget would’ve made it a less engaging game for our players. It’s hard to know!”

The studio’s COO François Meurisse and publisher Kepler Interactive’s portfolio director Matthew Handrahan had also spoken about how the lack of padding in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 helped to make it a successful release.

“One of the things that’s great about Expedition 33 is it really respects the player’s time,” said Hadrahan. “It gives them plenty to do, and it gives them plenty of satisfaction, but it isn’t arbitrarily 500 hours of gameplay. It’s impactful because it’s scoped correctly. […] It doesn’t have any sense of bloat or extraneous things that are put there just to make it larger and larger and larger.”

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S earlier this month. Check out our review for more details. In the meantime, also check out the release date trailer for Phantom Blade Zero, which is coming to PC and PS5 on September 9. Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S players will unfortunately have to wait for at least 12 months after release to play the upcoming game, however.

It does mention a PC release, however, which means that Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 players who have been waiting for Phantom Blade Zero will have to wait for, at minimum, another full year before they can play the title on their preferred platform. “Also available on PC. Not available on other consoles until at least 12 months after release date.”

Alongside this note, the trailer also gave us a look at some of the new weapons available in Phantom Blade Zero, including massive spears and hook swords. It also showcased some of the boss fights, along with the protagonist taking on the Drunken Fist style of combat.

Game director “Soulframe” Liang had previously spoken quite a bit about Phantom Blade Zero, including the fact that the fighting game genre served as one of the core inspirations behind the upcoming title’s boss fights, especially when players pick higher difficulty options. “In normal difficulty, he has some of the Soulslike elements to him: he has fixed combos, and if you fight him enough times, you’ll figure out his combos,” said Liang about one of the bosses.

“But in extreme difficulty, it’s a completely different direction,” he said, saying that the game designers “tried to borrow a concept from fighting games and incorporate it into his AI.” In Hellwalker difficulty, the boss can “analyze the situation he’s in and whether it’s to his advantage or disadvantage.”

Combat director Qianli Ma has also spoken about the game’s combat system, and how it was designed to put players into a “flow” state that makes them “want to dance”. This, Ma noted, came down to the fact that Phantom Blade Zero features fast-paced combat with the developers making sure to reduce input latency as much as possible.

“This allows players to pull off awesome, fast-paced combat without having to worry about missing inputs, entering into a “dance”-like flow state. “If you want to beat it in a mediocre, not-as-beautiful way, it’s pretty achievable,” Ma explained. “But if you want to do it in a very beautiful manner, that’s the difficult aspect.”

Ma’s description of the combat in this regard makes it difficult not to draw comparisons with titles like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, where the core challenge of the game comes from making sure you’re being as stylish as possible rather than using basic-but-effective combos.

Alongside showcasing some new weapons, like a massive spear and hook swords, the trailer highlights new bosses, like a massive ogre-like creature. Though they’re wielding some heavy chained objects, the player can turn them against his foe. Even more notable is the ability to combine the Drunken Fist with flying swords, and it’s as exaggerated as it is stunning.

Phantom Blade Zero was first announced in 2023, promising a “kung fu punk” take on the hack-and-slash action-adventure genre (which S-Game has clarified is not a Souls-like). As assassin Soul, players embark on a John Wick-like quest for vengeance. The main story takes about 20 to 30 hours to finish, though there’s plenty of side content and replay value.

It also announced that the “lion awakens,” while showcasing a short clip of Soul happening upon a foreboding lion dancer. After clambering up, it poses menacingly before everything fades to black. Perhaps this is the next boss battle gameplay that we’ll be seeing, and honestly, if it’s anything like the Divine Beast Dancing Lion from Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, we’re in for something special.

Phantom Blade Zero is currently in development for PS5 and PC. The last trailer showcased Pang Town and pitched battles against the faceless cult. S-GAME noted that it would take 20 to 30 hours to finish the story, but that you would only see 30 percent of the game on your first run. For even more gameplay and boss fights, head here.

“In normal difficulty, he has some of the Soulslike elements to him: he has fixed combos, and if you fight him enough times, you’ll figure out his combos,” said Liang about one of the upcoming title’s bosses, Huangxing. However, he goes on to note that playing on the Hellwalker difficulty mode, the boss fight takes on entirely new aspects by learning from how the player moves and attacks.

“But in extreme difficulty, it’s a completely different direction,” he said, saying that the game designers “tried to borrow a concept from fighting games and incorporate it into his AI.” In Hellwalker, the boss fight can “analyze the situation he’s in and whether it’s to his advantage or disadvantage.” For some additional wrinkles in the fight, Liang also spoke about the “Lucky Draw” system, which will change if the boss can continue their attacks into longer combos. “He tries to use the result of his last attack to determine what to do next,” said Liang.

When it comes to the combat difficulty of Phantom Blade Zero, combat director Qianli Ma had spoken about how players of any skill level will be able to finish the game. However, higher difficulty options and the combat system are designed around the idea of making players “want to dance”. To achieve this, Ma said that the combat systems were created “to a certain degree, giving up the accuracy of input to bring out the fast-paced combat.”

While there are going to be a few things in Phantom Blade Zero that might be inspired by FromSoftware’s Souls games, S-Game has previously spoken about how it doesn’t really consider the title to be a Soulslike.

“As of now, those who have tried the demo should have a solid idea that it’s not a Soulslike game,” said the developer in an FAQ. “It’s worth stressing again that ‘making another Soulslike’ was never part of the plan. We want combo-driven, heart-pumping combat that is hectic, rewarding and exhilarating.”

“We did take inspiration from Soulslike games, such as multi-layered maps, multiple approach paths, and hidden nooks and crevices, but the similarities stop there,” said the developer. “There will be difficulty options, and you won’t have to face respawned mobs after you die or interact with checkpoints.”

More recently, Liang has also noted that players won’t get to see all of Phantom Blade Zero in their first playthrough. However, he noted that a typical first run through the title will only reveal around 30 percent of it to players.

Phantom Blade Zero is being developed for PC and PS5, and doesn’t yet have a release date.

When it comes down to the kind of gameplay that players can expect from Phantom Blade Zero, combat director Qianli Ma, in an interview with PCGamer magazine (via GamesRadar), spoke about the core concept of the game being wuxia by way of kung fu, and the combat making players “want to dance”.

To achieve this, Ma noted that design decisions made around the combat in Phantom Blade Zero ultimately meant “to a certain degree giving up the accuracy of input to bring out the fast-paced combat.”

This also means that players who can tap into this “dance”-like flow state will likely be able to pull off slick combos when taking on foes. For those that might want to just focus on finishing the game, however, the combat won’t get in the way. “If you want to beat it in a mediocre, not-as-beautiful way, it’s pretty achievable,” Ma explained. “But if you want to do it in a very beautiful manner, that’s the difficult aspect.”

The concept of having a game’s difficulty largely come from prompting players to improve how they play the title without outright raising the difficulty of the game itself is quite similar to what we’ve seen in Capcom’s Devil May Cry and PlatinumGames’ Bayonetta franchises. In both of series, players can finish the games just fine, but the true challenge tends to come from wanting to get better scores in the games’ performance rating systems.

S-Game had spoken about Phantom Blade Zero not being a Soulslike back in June, 2024. In an FAQ about the game on social media, the studio stressed on the fact that its plans never involved “making another Soulslike”. Rather, the studio is more focused on delivering a combo-driven game where the combat can be hectic and rewarding at the same time.

“As of now, those who have tried the demo should have a solid idea that it’s not a Soulsike game,” said the developer in the FAQ. “It’s worth stressing again that ‘making another Soulslike’ was never part of the plan. We want combo-driven, heart-pumping combat that is hectic, rewarding and exhilarating.”

That’s not to say that Phantom Blade Zero won’t have any influences from FromSoftware’s Souls franchise, however. In an interview back in April, the studio spoke about being inspired by the level design of Dark Souls, particularly praising the interconnected levels of the older games from FromSoftware’s outings.

“On the Souls-lite level design side, we are definitely a fan of and inspired by the pre-Elden Ring, interconnected, tight level design,” said a representative from S-Game. They also mentioned that Liang studied architecture at school, “so the level design is something that’s very important for us and we want to have very robust levels, have a lot of depth to them, very dense.”

Phantom Blade Zero doesn’t yet have a release date. It is being developed for PC and PS5.

The story focuses on Soul, a former assassin of The Order, as he investigates the death of his Matriarch. With little time to live, he can access a massive arsenal of weapons – over 30 main weapons and 20 secondaries are available. However, Phantom Blade Zero won’t limit your options. If you want to rock two main weapons or two secondaries, go right ahead.

It’s the exploration that’s more intriguing. Liang isn’t too keen on a large world where players get lost. You’ll have hand-drawn maps guiding you, but even then, a typical first run may encompass only 30 percent of the total experience, with extensive amounts of missable content.

Liang didn’t provide a release date for Phantom Blade Zero or even an update on its public demo. However, it will be dated before 2025 comes to a close, so stay tuned. Check out some more gameplay here.

Despite quietly entering the town, Soul is accosted by members of the faceless cult (led by the Chief Disciple of the Seven Stars). Some sick executions are showcased, but perhaps one of the coolest abilities is using a cultist as a body shield before stabbing and kicking them away. Realistic blood spatters, environmental destruction and some impressive ray-traced shadows are apparent throughout.

Phantom Blade Zero arrives in 2026 for PS5 and PC, with the trailer confirming a release date announcement later this year. Those attending Gamescom can go hands-on with it, but S-Game has yet to confirm when its public demo will launch.