When Chinese action game Phantom Blade Zero was first revealed to the world, it drew countless comparisons to FromSoftware’s Souls games, to the point its director (the appropriately-nicknamed “Soulframe” Liang) had to repeatedly downplay the influence. More recently, as more of Phantom Blade Zero has been shown, it’s been compared favourably to the Ninja Gaiden series for its combo-led combat. So where exactly does it sit on this spectrum?
According to the people making it, it’s both. I spoke with Liang and the S-Game team at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), where I was taken through Phantom Blade Zero’s three key influences. Firstly, the game has the combo-driven combat of Devil May Cry, though it’s more approachable with less complex inputs. Secondly, it has the level design of Dark Souls with its interconnected maps, though it omits the high cost of death. Thirdly, it takes the creepy, thick atmosphere of Resident Evil 4 or Alan Wake, but with a new aesthetic the team describes as kung fu punk.
“I don’t think that is a frustration, it’s just something to help the players to understand the game better,” said Liang, when I asked if the frequent Souslike comparison was frustrating. “Although there was a misunderstanding and now there are more people comparing us to Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry, which is the other way around. But maybe this is a way to help another group of players to understand or anticipate the game. There’s something for both sides.
“But for us, it’s hard to label our game as a pure Souls game, nor hack and slash. It’s just something in between. It’s a way to tell a story.”
Liang admitted simply borrowing from other games would make the game too generic; instead he wants to create a coherent game as a “whole piece of art”, based on two philosophies.
The first is the idea of a playable kung fu film. “We want to call back the golden age of Hong Kong kung fu movies from the 1970s, starting from Bruce Lee and then Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen,” he said. “The trend has faded out since the early 2000s so we want to go back to that and try to bring the trend back.”
And as a Chinese studio, S-Game aims to fulfill this mission authentically, from its motion capture to film inspiration. Liang cites kung fu action game Sifu from French studio Sloclap as a comparison: “If a French studio can do something like that, why couldn’t we do something even more authentic from Chinese culture?”. Just as Sifu has a side-scrolling combat sequence inspired by 2011 Indonesian film The Raid, Phantom Blade Zero will also feature special combat scenarios with its own “alley of death”.
The second philosophy is taking inspiration from 90s game development to ensure the scope is manageable. “We want to get back to the PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 era,” said Liang, “when the games were not so big, the budgets not sky high, the team manageable, and all the developers were passionate and creative and with experience. It’s like a bigger indie game, but with budget and with experience and with a stable hand, and everything feels so integrated from the starting point when you press down the Start button to the finish point of the staff list.”
That said, there’s the small matter of last year’s phenomenally successful Black Myth Wukong. Liang admitted the Phantom Blade Zero development team has received both more resources and more pressure from Wukong’s success – both games have received investment from Tencent. “Everyone now realises there is potential for a Chinese-made game to make 30m copies in half a year,” he said.
Expectations are high, then, but the results already speak for themselves. The S-Game team showed me a presentation detailing reactions to Phantom Blade Zero on social media since its reveal. And while Wukong’s trailers are the most viewed within China, it’s outperformed by Phantom Blade Zero in the rest of the world. For a quick comparison, the launch trailer for Wukong received 2.8m views on the game’s YouTube channel and 3m views on the PlayStation channel. Meanwhile, Phantom Blade Zero’s announcement trailer on the PlayStation channel has 5.3m views.
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So far, Phantom Blade Zero appears to be living up to those expectations. I previously played the game at last year’s Gamescom, where I was impressed with its speedy and stylish combat that marries quick combos with snappy parry and dodge mechanics as the protagonist – with good timing – spins behind enemies in slow-motion to retaliate.
At GDC, I was able to take on a new boss, the Chief Disciple of the Seven Stars – a sort of puppet master whose minions must be defeated to prevent healing – as well as test some new weapons, all seen in the game’s latest Year of the Snake trailer (above). While the first phase of the fight was manageable, the second phase has the boss dangling on strings with some bizarre animations. Unlike Souls games, the second phase acts as a checkpoint to ensure the battle is approachable, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Still, once the parry and dodge buttons clicked into place in my head and hands, the combat felt sublime.
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A big part of that is the fluid animations – S-Game has created a library of animations to ensure smooth transitions between combat moves and dynamic responses during battles. And those animations were all motion captured using real martial artists for that authentic kung fu feel – yes, even the puppet master dangling on a wire. The final game will also include 30 primary weapons and 20 secondary weapons to utilise, all based on historically accurate weapons but with punk modifications. S-Game has additionally revealed an Extreme difficulty mode where attack patterns have been wiped in favour of intelligent AI that replicates a PvP feel, a feature added after feedback from players wanting a higher challenge.
Beyond these features, what’s particularly notable is the studio has shown little of the narrative its combat is focused on. Indeed, Liang told me all combat shown so far – including the puppet master boss – is from optional side content. So while what we’ve seen has been impressive enough to rival one of the biggest success stories of the past couple of years, there’s still far more to come. No wonder the game remains frustratingly without a release date.
