The presence of Phantom Blade Zero at the Summer Game Fest 2024 was a wake-up call for sailors: S-GAME continued working silently on a project that catches you just by taking a look at it. A year after its revelation under the mantle of PlayStation, the Beijing-based team traveled to Los Angeles so that all interested parties could see first-hand that what they are doing is very serious.
This is Phantom Blade Zero, one of the great games that will arrive in 2026
Its goal is none other than the throne of action games in this generation. The person in charge supervising our session explained to us that many people confused it with another soulslike, but that they do not point at all to the From Software trend. They seek to deploy a purely action experience that is more similar to Devil May Cry than Dark Souls. It is not a hack and slash in essence, but it does deploy a fairly wide assortment of combos and various tools in a combat that has surprised us quite a bit… and for the better.
The demo that MeriStation had access to during the Summer Game Fest barely took 15 minutes. It may not seem like much on paper. However, we made good use of it.. In that section we had time to play the tutorial, an exploration section against common enemies and a boss rush of three confrontations we continued.
The combat is spectacular. We insist: it has surprised us a lot. Although those responsible still point out that there are at least two years of development left (they have three runs), it does not seem at all that this will be released in 2026 at the earliest. It’s solid, rocky, it looks spectacular thanks to the use of Unreal Engine 5… but it plays even better. The chain of animations allows combat to flow seamlessly. It doesn’t feel rough at all: we receive feedback on each action on the opponent as if the studio were a true veteran of the genre. It plays very, very well.
The combat bases its strengths on parry and evasion. Enemies make a grid of attacks that can be countered with one or the other, and that’s where your skill comes into play. A last-second block may save your life in the face of an impossible-to-evade attack, and the same goes for the other way around. Rivals’ attacks are readable. You don’t have the feeling that it is difficult to get the timing. In fact, if there is one thing we appreciate, it is that it barely took us five minutes to learn its game systems. You quickly connect with its rules.
A top decision has to do with the use you can make of your equipped weapons. Similar to Nioh, you can carry two main weapons equipped at the same time without incurring any penalties. The twist here is that if you are in the middle of a combo and you change weapons, you multiply the combo with the exclusive movements of the newly equipped one. The trade-off is that you obviously cannot abuse the system. You will have to wait for an important cooldown to return to the previous oner. The two melee blades coexist with two other ranged ones that follow the same line. In the demo we had a bow and an explosive cannon. Almost nothing.
Enlarge
The bosses we faced marked very well-defined play styles. One of them threw a candelabra of incense that made us instakill if we didn’t play with the scenario. When launching it, if we jumped on the pillars of the dojo we could avoid it. These types of decisions in confrontations like this offer a level of variety that is greatly appreciated. Another of the bosses tested our reflexes. He carried his enormous sword to launch waves of energy towards where we were. Evading at the right time was the key.
Phantom Blade Zero is not bluffing
It’s quite disappointing to think that there are still two years left to see the final version of Phantom Blade Zero on the market. With just fifteen minutes of demonstration, he has won us over with his know-how when it comes to making decisions around combat. It is forceful and challenging at the same time.. It doesn’t forgive a mistake, but it rewards like few others when you nail a parry at the right moment. Watch out for what’s coming.
