Phantom Blade Zero is a completely new action role-playing game from S-GAME, just released on October 29, 2026 on PS5 and PC. If you love swordplay role-playing games or grew up with Hong Kong and Chinese swordplay movies, this is a name you should not miss.

The world in the game is a dark fantasy that S-GAME calls "kungfupunk", but every piece of music, every weapon, every move can immediately remind you of Tieu Ngao Giang Ho, Thien Long Bat Bo or Condor Heroes. Not only the color of Kim Dung, I also saw glimpses of Tieu Ly Phi Dao, Tuyet Am Cuong Dao in Phong Van, Thap Faces Mai Phuc and a series of other sects and wanderer characters. The most prominent thing on the internet in the past few days was the fiery duel with Mac Uyen (Mó Yuan), the character played by Donnie Yen himself through motion capture technology, with a series of Wing Chun punches that made everyone say it was Ip Man.

I let a video record the screen of a battle scene in the game so everyone can see the graphics and effects:

Not only that, the game also offers extremely fast-paced, powerful and beautiful combat. To put it a bit "flatteringly", playing Phantom Blade Zero is like playing the main role in a martial arts movie with top-notch effects. Weapon effects, skills or moves are all presented more reasonably, with more power and physics, instead of just the usual dancing streaks of light. It's understandable, because Donnie Yen has been working as a creative consultant for the game since 2023, and the action director is Kenji Tanigaki, who has been with his stunt team for a long time.

Plot

This part may be controversial, but at the time of writing, I see that the plot is not the most important thing about Phantom Blade Zero.

The main character you play is called Soul, an elite assassin of The Order organization, falsely accused of murdering his own master. Soul suffered a fatal blow to the heart and was saved by a mysterious method, but the price was that he only had 66 days left to live. The entire game is the journey of Soul racing against time to find the real villain, clean up the injustice and expose the dark conspiracy surrounding the world.

However, when playing in reality, I believe it will be quite difficult for you to imagine the story line you are pursuing. Because on a journey from point A to point B, you will go through countless fragments of stories, many flashbacks, and it feels like they have little to do with Soul's story. But those are definitely things that must be done, because they are pieces of the main mission, and you need to do them fully to get the best ending, because the game has many different endings depending on what you did along the way.

Even though while playing you may not be too concerned with the main plot, or find the side missions not very relevant, each mission still has its own beauty and challenges. They require perseverance, forcing you to go around every corner of the map, collect all the necessary things and fight to get what you want.

Gameplay

Phantom Blade Zero would be a bad game if its gameplay wasn't so engaging. Especially for those who love old swordplay movies, the game allows you to relive that atmosphere in a different way: instead of watching magical swords and swords on the screen, now you are the one who executes them. It was you who had to confront Mac Uyen (temporarily called Ip Man to be like everyone else), and it was also you who received all the rounds of Wing Chun to the point of being ragged.

The game forces you to fight at high speed, even very high, with continuous chains of attacks from both sides. It's okay to spam the button, it's okay, but that way will not bring victory, there will be no fiery sword blocks, no beautiful "by-the-book" moves like the movies, and even less breathtaking "weighing" scenes.

In my opinion, the game is heavily invested in the combat system and accompanying arsenal. You need to block attacks at the right time to counterattack, know how to dodge, and read the opponent's stance to wear down their Sha-Chi. This is a bar that plays both a physical role and a defensive position: every time you block a standard attack, the opponent's bar will gradually decrease, and when it runs out, the defensive position of the boss or monster is broken, opening up space for you to put strong damage into the health bar. This is the focus of the game, so from the beginning, practice seriously. Having a good skill base will make the game more attractive in the future.

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Along with the combat system and those moves is an extremely diverse arsenal, with more than 30 main weapons and a series of secondary weapons (Phantom Edge) such as throwing knives, hammers, bows, and sickles. You will encounter many familiar dishes in swordplay movies. The good thing is that each weapon needs to be learned and used in a different way, and when used correctly, each item has its own visual effect. Combined with blocking and counterattack skills, the fighting becomes even more fiery, to the point that I think it's hard to describe in words.

For me personally, boss fights are an opportunity to show off skills and weapons. Being able to unleash graceful, magical moves is even more enjoyable than pinching the boss's health bar. But this is still a real challenge: you will be beaten to a pulp, sometimes it will take several hours and you will not necessarily win. Depending on the difficulty level you choose, the boss in the game also knows how to dodge, block, and know how to take advantage of your openings to attack, just like the players.

The last great thing to mention about the gameplay is the way the game handles dying and respawning, which is more about entertainment than maximum challenge. On the map there are bells that act as save points and quick teleportation. When fighting a boss and being defeated, you will revive at the nearest bell with full health and potions, then return to fight again. Most importantly, the boss's phase is maintained and not reset. This means that if you previously pushed the boss to phase 2, when you return, you will continue to fight from phase 2 instead of having to fight from the beginning.

Challenges in the game

The biggest challenge is definitely your own fighting skills, specifically blocking attacks at the right time to have a chance to counterattack. This skill is easily overlooked at the beginning of the game, causing players to get used to spamming buttons, and then later when encountering bosses that are both strong and smart, it is very difficult to balance the odds, and the beauty of the game is lost. No matter how well you practice, there will still be times when you hit at the wrong time, but try to get it right as much as possible.

The next challenge is to remember and master the moves of each weapon. Each item has its own set of skills, and when used correctly, what you see first is the beautiful effect, then the power it exerts.

Doing side quests is also a kind of challenge for me, because you need to be very patient, and they directly affect the ending of the game. I say that because I believe that there will be people who want to reach the finish line quickly, but unfortunately the game allows that, you can completely ignore a lot of things. One more important thing: there are tasks that even if you want, you can't do them right away, but you have to continue "for a while" before coming back to complete them.

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The map is quite confusing in many places. This should be a minus point, but thinking back, the game is not an open world, nor does it follow a straight line, but consists of many large areas connected to each other and does not limit the tasks too tightly. The developer wants you to explore freely, and if you are free, confusion is inevitable.

Graphics

The game is set in a gloomy, dilapidated setting, and this will be a challenge for low-configuration systems. Because of this scene, combined with low graphics settings, it looks no different from a game from more than a decade ago. In return, you can still fight quite smoothly on handheld PCs, and you can still see the effects of moves, but the trees and character's clothes will look... quite ruined.

On the contrary, if you play on a well-configured PC with Ray Tracing or Path Tracing enabled, it will be the most complete experience to enjoy the effects of each type of weapon. In general, the most beautiful thing about the game is not the setting. The most beautiful, eye-catching and most valuable thing is the visual effects during combat.

Each weapon and each move has a different effect, and when fighting the boss, the "realness" of physics is equally captivating. Blocking attacks with all kinds of positions are very elaborately choreographed, really giving me the feeling of playing the role of a person who knows martial arts, especially in one-on-two and three-on-one fights.

I advise you to play with a good quality headset. You can leisurely admire the scenery, enjoy the melodious music, and sometimes have to listen to the echoing cries to follow the direction. Furthermore, the sound of clashing weapons or the screams of the dolls sometimes gives me goosebumps. These sounds are worth enjoying with the best headphones you have.

In my opinion, Phantom Blade Zero requires a more comfortable computer configuration than Resident Evil Requiem released earlier this year, although on paper, Phantom Blade Zero's recommended configuration is even higher. You can completely set up high configuration with Path Tracing at 4K with RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080 or equivalent card, just turn on DLSS, without Frame Generation you can still achieve over 60 FPS. With RTX 5080, my device can keep around 90 FPS, combat is extremely smooth.

The part that is not so smooth is when moving on the map: sometimes there are significant drops in FPS for unknown reasons. I think this error comes from the game, not the hardware, and many review sites also noted similar stuttering phenomenon.

Advice

• You should play with a controller and a good headset.
• Don't rush when doing tasks. If you're missing items, just keep going to collect them in the next area and then come back to complete them.
• If you've never played this genre, pay attention to both the health bar and the boss's Sha-Chi bar. Block the attack correctly to break the boss's defense, then take advantage of that space to deal damage.
• Read the weapon description carefully to choose the one that suits you. It is revealed that there is a bloodsucking sword (Outlaw Warblade) that is very imba on easy difficulty.
• Finally, even though I'm a chicken, I still want to advise everyone to practice quick reflexes to block and dodge attacks.

Conclusion

Overall, Phantom Blade Zero still has a few things that are not really good at the present time, such as FPS drops in very normal scenes, or the "desolate" background graphics are a bit too extreme, making the experience on low-configuration devices quite bad.

What I like most about the way S-GAME designed this game is the "ease of play" in many aspects. The game does not harm the player like most games in the same genre: if you die, you can continue playing from the unfinished phase instead of starting from the beginning, and except for the Sixty-Six Days mode that is unlocked after clearing the island, the remaining difficulty levels have no limit on the number of lives. Revive freely, fight bosses for 4 or 6 hours, as long as you have strength.

The weapons in the game also have an imba in favor of the player, although the boss seems to have incredibly intelligent AI installed. The massive arsenal is partly for players to freely experience beautiful moves, the rest is to give players outstanding power items such as blood-sucking swords, enough to sweep every area and every boss.

And until now, it is that "ease of playing" that is attracting me more than ever. I have more time and concentration to fully enjoy Phantom Blade Zero's extremely satisfying moves.

And I also believe that those of you who were once passionate about swordplay movies in the 2000s and also like to play role-playing games should not miss this game. It really brings a feeling of levity and familiarity, sometimes just the background music of the song Tieu Ngao playing is enough to make me feel "yes", the old feelings rush back to each new episode.

I send you a few videos I recorded of the game screen. If you want to see it at 4K Path Tracing/ 60 FPS resolution, please take a look.