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S-GAME has revealed during a presentation at ChinaJoy 2023, that its upcoming and incredibly slick-looking action RPG Phantom Blade Zero, will be getting a playable public demo at some point next year for both PS5 and PC.
Phantom Blade Zero was first announced in the May PlayStation Showcase and caught players’ attention with its Unreal Engine 5-powered visuals and impressive-looking combat. A spin-off side scrolling prequel called Phantom Blade: Executioners is also coming to PS5, PS4, PC and mobile platforms at some point this year.
According to Soulframe Liang, the founder of S-GAME, Phantom Blade Zero is a “spiritual rebirth” of a 2010 RPG Maker project that they’d made called Rainblood: Town of Death. After Liang finished making Rainblood and moved to China to found S-Game, they soon spun it into a whole franchise, renaming it Phantom Blade and producing some incredibly successful China-exclusive mobile games from the IP.
Now, the studio is developing Phantom Blade Zero and expanding that universe to a whole new global audience on PS5. The game promises a semi-open-world action RPG experience an occult/martial arts/steampunk hybrid aesthetic that it’s dubbing “Kungfupunk” and an approachable but authentic kung-fu combat system. The studio has even tapped veteran stuntman and fight coordinator, Kenji Tanigaki, to assist in animating the game’s fights.
You can see a recording of the Phantom Blade Zero/Executioners presentation at ChinaJoy 2023 below (via Gematsu):
You can also check out the debut trailer for Phantom Blade Zero below as well as read about the origins of the studio and game, as well as what to expect from it, in more depth on the PlayStation Blog.
Check out the world premiere of Phantom Blade Zero, a new Action RPG featuring deep and dark art style, fast paced combat, and a fictitious world blending Chinese martial arts and steampunk. Be the Dark Raider exiled by “The Order”, embark on the path of vengeance, and uncover the darkest secrets of Wulin.
