Phantom Blade Zero review: I sunk 50 hours into this martial arts masterpiece. The bar is breathtakingly high.

Quick Recap

The reveal of Phantom Blade Zero back in 2023 promised a kung fu-style epic that looked too good to be true. While there have been several extremely well-made action games in the past decade, like Devil May Cry 5, Sekiro, and, more recently, Ninja Gaiden 4 and Onimusha: Way of the Sword, none of them have the extremely choreographed combat that makes the live gameplay look and feel more like a movie. At least, that is the impression I got from the reveal trailers. The stakes were quite high for a relatively unknown studio that had only a few indie successes under its belt and was best known for making mobile games.

After finishing it in just over 50 hours, I can confidently say that it surpassed most of my expectations, and it looks like I’m not the only one. S-GAME confirmed that Phantom Blade Zero sold over 4 million units in its first three days, with over 1 million of those sold pre-launch. It also hit a peak of over 830,000 concurrent players on Steam and was still retaining most of that a week after launch.

The setup process wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked. There were compatibility issues with NVIDIA’s latest driver, with the dev team asking users to hold off on updating at launch. There was also a 15-minute shader compilation window, and the gigantic 140 GB install size meant I had to clear up significant space on my drive. On the plus side, the in-game settings weren’t complicated, and once I loaded in, I didn’t have to spend much time optimizing them.

World and Immersion

One of the first things that hit me as soon as the game started was the immersion. There wasn’t a single UI element on my screen during exploration, and very little of it showed up during combat. This is extremely important in the RPG genre, as it asks you to care about the character, the world, and your choices within it. That only lands if you stop feeling like you’re operating a game and start feeling like you’re living in it. The cinematics run in full-screen instead of the letterboxing typically used in games, which adds to this further and is a quality touch. I would say it closely rivals the immersion level of Ghost of Tsushima or Dead Space and may even go a step further.

All of this is beautifully complemented by a world that is absolutely majestic. The dark-greyish steampunk design incorporates a lot of elements that pay homage to the game’s Chinese heritage while setting the undertone for the revenge, betrayal, and corruption that has festered within Wulin. The combat graphics provide a much-needed balance, with flashy animations and colors that turn every fight into a vivid, almost theatrical spectacle against the world’s muted backdrop. It also sits in the upper echelon in terms of fidelity. Its pixel density, lighting, shadows, and geometry give the environment and its characters the lifelike realism we have come to expect from Unreal Engine 5 games.

The attention to detail across every aspect is astonishing, especially the studio’s brilliance in character design, which cannot be overstated. Sound design and music are excellent examples of this as well. The music that plays while you travel between regions usually has a mellow beat and slow tempo, but during fights, its intensity picks up dramatically to match the pace to a tee, though there were a few times it completely missed the mark. Weapons clashing and blades slashing through enemies sound satisfying too. The fluid, intricate movesets of Soul and every enemy are a testament to the remarkable work of the motion capture team and stunt artists.

Story

Great ARPGs live and die by two things: story and combat. I’m absolutely torn on how to rate the story, purely because of how it’s told. The fragmented storytelling and constant jumps back and forth between time periods make it extremely hard to understand what is going on for a good portion of the playthrough. I personally think this method works better in an open-world game, where what you explore affects how the story unfolds. In a linear game like this, I find it hard to justify the unnecessary complexity. Having said that, once you understand the entire picture, the story is extremely well-written and interesting. It also leaves scope for future expansions, which I feel was intentional.

Once I understood the entire picture, the story turned out to be extremely well-written. It just takes far too long to get there.

Phantom Blade Zero follows Soul, an elite assassin serving a shadowy organization known as The Order, in a world inspired by Ming-dynasty China and laced with steampunk machinery and horror. When the Order’s Patriarch, Mu Tianmiao, who is also Soul’s adoptive father, is murdered, Soul is framed for the crime, betrayed by the people he called family and left for dead. He is brought back from the brink but poisoned, with just 66 days to live. That countdown drives a quest to expose the conspiracy behind the Patriarch’s death. It pits him against his sworn brother Zuo Shang and forces him to honor an old childhood pact with Mu Xiaokui. At heart, it is a classic wuxia tale of revenge, loyalty, and betrayal, sharpened by the question of what a man does when he knows exactly how much time he has left.

Combat

Combat is easily the most exciting and unique part of the game’s arsenal, and the cool factor is off the charts. Most fights play out as flashy, fast-paced back-and-forth duels that feel like they’re lifted straight out of a martial arts film. The pace makes you believe you can button mash your way to victory, but that is not the case, as I found out many times. The developers also made an interesting choice by not respawning defeated enemies. This lets them accurately set the difficulty of future fights, since players can’t overpower their character by beating the same enemies again and again. Because of this, most duels that I did eventually win ended with me on low HP after leaning heavily on medicine and accessories.

You have to rely heavily on chained combos and special weapon characteristics to get through these fights.

Bosses aside, the normal enemy mobs after a while also start to overwhelm you with their sheer volume and variety of mechanics if you don’t pay attention. You have to rely heavily on chained combos and special weapon characteristics to get through these fights. Once enemies are at extremely low HP, they can be finished off with an execution, which gives you a second of much-needed relief amid all the chaos.

Combat is divided between primary weapons and Phantom Edges. The primary weapon is your main source of consistent damage. Edges act as secondary powerful attacks with higher damage, guard and shield break, but have a limited number of uses. Each primary weapon has a light, heavy, and power surge attack. It also has a variety of combinations that unlock as you level the weapon all the way up to level 30.

The most important resource to track during fights is your Sha Chi, which acts as a stamina bar, posture gauge, and special attack resource all in one. Light attacks don’t consume Sha Chi, but heavy attacks and combinations do. You can also infuse both with Sha Chi to increase their damage or guard-breaking ability. Switching between primary weapons restores all your Sha Chi. This became a core mechanic in the later stages, when each boss attack could drain it in one hit. Switching does have a cooldown, though, so it can’t be spammed at will.

Phantom Edges also double as exploration tools, since their abilities help you clear or access previously locked areas. In fact, a lot of the exploration depends on them. After beating a boss that gives you a particular Phantom Edge, you can go back to previously inaccessible areas shown in red, which are now shown with a green marker. Some of these include using the Tiger Cannon to blow up loose rock walls or the Flaming Mane mask to burn away branches blocking a certain path.

Weapon Variety and Power Scaling

There was never a time I was bored during fights. That’s partly because of the diversity in movesets and also because of the insane variety in weapons and Phantom Edges, which have a combined total of around 49 individual items. You acquire these by defeating story and optional bosses. Every single one of them has a unique playstyle and is useful against different types of enemies.

I tried almost every single weapon and Phantom Edge and was blown away by the difference they made to how I approached each fight.

The game also encourages you to try as many as you can. You can refund all the resources spent on a weapon and put them into another using a Weapon Reforge Talisman, and these are plentiful throughout your journey. This really helped, as I never felt locked into a certain playstyle and could experiment as much as I wanted. I tried almost every single weapon and did not feel disappointed even once. I could tell that each one was crafted with intention and not just to add another one to the pile.

The Scarlet Witherblade was my early-game favorite. Every heavy attack with it spawned red lilies on the ground, and any enemy standing in that field would lose stamina, which made breaking their guard easy. During the late game, I mostly relied on faster dual-wielded weapons like the Fiend Saws for their quick attacks and flamboyant combos that matched the pace of the fights during that stage.

And just when you think you have mastered a particular weapon, it throws a curveball at you with Soul Tempering. It is a late-game mechanic for both weapons and edges that completely transforms how they play by adding special combat effects or skills. For example, a Soul Tempered Tianxuan Bronze Sword unlocks “Effortless Action,” which lets you keep blocking attacks at the cost of HP even after being guard-broken. It is an irreversible upgrade, so even if you revert the weapon level back to 0, the Soul Tempering stays. Most weapons seem viable enough to run throughout the game, but why would you want to when you’re given so much freedom to switch? This insane variety also boosts its replayability a lot.

There also exists an extremely powerful skill tree that scales your existing abilities and gives you new ones as you progress. I think some of these abilities are a little too powerful and lower the skill cap, such as Cicada’s Escape, which makes you automatically retreat when your guard is broken and makes you immune to attacks, and Still Mind, which gives you invincibility during power surge attacks. 

Most of the extremely powerful skills require a Banyan Heart. You get those from completing extremely tough multi-stage fights, or you can buy a limited number from the store later. While some skills were cheesy, most did what they were designed to do. Some, like Flow Like Water, made the game even more enjoyable without just handing you a get-out-of-jail-free card. It stops blocking and dodging from interrupting your current combo. Overall, the progression does feel extremely rewarding.

Bosses

There are over 60 bosses spread across 8 regions, and almost half are missable and tied to how much exploring you do. Most have unique designs and fight mechanics. Earlier bosses mainly rely on weapon attacks, but you soon start seeing environmental and area damage attacks that affect how you position yourself. Status effects such as poison, fire, and electricity also add debuffs to your character. I often found myself using medicines that reduce the buildup of these effects to get through a boss. Some bosses summon allies to help them, while others have up to three phases, each more challenging than the last. It got to a point where I was thankful that dying in a boss’s second phase brought me back into that phase rather than restarting the whole thing.

After finishing the game, I can still vividly recall most of the boss fights. The encounters were that memorable.

The game is not as difficult as some soulslikes, but it is definitely not easy, and it targets a wider audience than that genre usually does. The difficulty often relies on quick reactions to a barrage of enemy attacks and finding the right moment to strike. I could never just attack relentlessly and expect to overwhelm my enemy.

Another extremely interesting aspect is that bosses change up their moveset mid-fight depending on how efficiently you block or dodge their attacks. If I found a certain attack difficult to avoid, I saw it come more frequently, either in the same fight or the next time I respawned and came back. This only applies on the greatest difficulty, and it makes sure you master your weaknesses before you can clear an area and move on. I was a huge fan of adding difficulty this way rather than through bigger damage numbers or longer HP bars.

If I had one complaint about the boss design, it would be the visual clutter. It is sometimes overwhelming and actually hinders gameplay, because you can’t even see what’s going on. Also, contrary to popular belief, the game is not just a boss rush where you face one after another. Most bosses have a decent amount of lore that you uncover in the build-up to the fight. You find it through completing hours of side missions, which completely changes the game’s ending. You need to complete most of this bonus content to get the true ending out of the eight possible ones. While hopping from one boss to the next in a hurry is definitely possible, it is guaranteed to tank the quality of your experience.

Runtime and Performance

It took me just over 50 hours to finish the game with 100% completion and every achievement unlocked, all in a single playthrough. The achievements were straightforward and didn’t lean heavily on collectibles, apart from a few basic ones that are almost impossible to miss. Since weapon, medicine, and accessory upgrades carry over into NG+, repeat runs go much faster, and I think finishing one in around 30 hours is entirely doable.

My game ran at a consistent 80 FPS on max graphics settings. I did experience two crashes when I alt-tabbed during cinematics to check something, but none during active gameplay. There were a few annoying collision issues as well, partly because everything has a hitbox, so I would sometimes get stuck on small rocks mid-fight. I was also playing in English, and the animations are recorded for the Chinese dialogue, which is longer in some places. Because of this, characters would sometimes stand there silently for 2-3 seconds after the English line had already finished.

Verdict

No other game released this year comes remotely close to Phantom Blade Zero in terms of combat and cool factor. Its back-and-forth parrying and dodging exchanges keep you entertained from start to finish, although the storytelling could be improved significantly. It caters to a wide audience: anyone looking for fun, challenging combat that isn’t cry-your-eyes-out tryhard, with as much weapon variety as multiple other games put together. The music, high-quality graphics, and UI design provide extreme levels of immersion. The motion capture animations are beyond impressive, although some boss fights could use a bit less noise on screen. Overall, this game oozes passionate development, and for me, it is the best game I have played in 2026. An easy 9/10.

Digital Trends reviewed Phantom Blade Zero on PC using a copy purchased independently on Steam. Testing was conducted on a system with a ZOTAC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB, AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and 32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM.

Phantom Blade Zero is available on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

The following are the PC requirements for the game, as per Steam: