During Summer Game Fest 2024, I finally had a chance to get some hands-on experience with the upcoming title Phantom Blade Zero, which you can read about here if you haven’t already. This happens to be a game that many people have been referring to as a Soulslike, despite my hands-on experience and subsequent discussions indicating that this wasn’t correct. I get it, it looks like a Soulslike and that’s what people have been keen to label it.
Recently, I had a chance to catch up with Will Chen, the head of publishing at S-Game, the developer of Phantom Blade Zero, to get more information regarding the title. Specifically, what type of game it actually is, the demo that was playable at Summer Game Fest 2024, and upcoming plans for the demo. During this conversation, he was keen to point out again that Phantom Blade Zero is not a Soulslike, but has taken some inspiration from the genre.
“After Summer Game Fest, we have received much encouragement and praise, as well as plenty of great advice on how to improve the game,” stated Will Chen. “Our game is still in the mid-development stage, and the reason we are releasing the playable demo at this phase is to showcase that our combat system is as fascinating as the first trailer.”
“Additionally, we want to validate our judgment and insights into action games, so we have taken three primary considerations for our game:
- Combat: We are not making another Soulslike game. We want our players to experience fast-paced, heart-pumping, combo-driven, and aggressive combat. This includes a large arsenal of weapons, each with unique mechanics.
- Level design: We did take some inspiration from Soulslike games, such as multi-layered maps, multiple approach paths, and hidden nooks and crevices.
- Storyline: We are drawing inspiration from Resident Evil and Alan Wake to create creepy vibes structured around carefully designed scenes. Besides that, we aim to have appealing characters, engaging linear storylines, and extraordinary cinematic graphics.
Considering all the elements, our game can be understood as integrating the lite versions of three games: Devil May Cry 5 Lite, Souls Lite, and Resident Evil 4 Lite.”
Those are some very good games to create a new game off of, and If you had played the demo, you would automatically said to yourself that the game is very Devil May Cry-like, with some Nier: Automata, Sekiro, and Ninja Gaiden tossed in. Perhaps labeling the game a Soulslite feels better, but to me it still feels like more of a hack-and-slash. Then again, S-Game is the developer, you’ll have to trust them on what their vision is.
When discussing the demo, Will Chen pointed out that while the demo only had access to three bosses, the full game will feature many more, as well as over 30 weapons in the game, special combat modes such as wagon defense, and engaging storylines. He stated that the Phantom Blade Zero demo will also make an appearance at Gamescom 2024, so if you haven’t had a chance to check out the demo yet and are heading to Gamescom, definitely try to get some hands-on experience.
Phantom Blade Zero is being developed for the PS5 and PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), and currently, there isn’t a release date as of yet.
