Phantom Blade Zero: A New PlayStation Showcase Star
Phantom Blade 0, back to one of the stars of the PlayStation Showcase
” One more Souls-like on PlayStation 5?! “: no doubt, this exclamation must have resounded face more than one screen when Phantom Blade Zero arose from the conference organized by Sony. In reality, it would be simplistic to compare the next and ambitious title of the studio S-GAME (developed under Unreal Engine 5) to yet another version darker of a title such as Sekiro or even an ersatz from the union of a Nioh and a Ghost of Tsushima. By the developers’ own admission, this type of game, Souls-like this is not what best suits the ambition of the studio in terms of clashes.
Here, on is more on a surge of blows, a frantic melody of clashing sabers and an agility that combines flexibility and lethality all in a case closer to a Devil May Cry or a Ninja Gaiden to stick more to the atmosphere. Beyond that, Phantom Blade Zero was defined, at the time of its revelation, as an action-adventure game a bit more accessible than its obvious inspirations and in the heart of feudal China, steeped in Wuxia culture. Rather than an open world, the S-GAME teams (more accustomed to games on mobile media) opted for an odyssey in a world semi-open composed of zones ” created at the main ». If he has many interesting ideas, it is son remaining gameplay the centerpiece of son adventure.
The kung-fu master who plays the punks, it gives crazy fights
Inevitably, when theon knows that our protagonist has only 66 days to live, it can only give a speedy quest to wash son name, he who is accused of having assassinated the patriarch of the Order, the powerful organization for which he works. Joystick in hand, this translates above all into A feeling which the developers call “kung-fu punk” mixing martial arts, occult techniques and a ton of contemporary inspirations ranging from cult manga such as Vagabond, Berserk Or Claymore passing through Hong Kong films… or in others which are much less so like John Wick or Everything Everywhere All at Once. In terms of combatit rocks and on saw it with our own eyes!
In the facts, Phantom Blade Zero takes the form of a very action-oriented role-playing game and endowed with rich elements of progression characters integrated into the storyline and gameplay “. Concretely, the hero, who has ruthless saber techniques, can be even more lethal thanks to a system called Combo Chainoffering alternatives in the use of skill suites and the possibility of triggering everything in the space of a few presses. Attention, accessible does not mean that the system global will not be deep for all that, quite the contrary. For example, it will be necessary to be particularly vigilant vis-à-vis the parry and dodge window, even more face to boss will be ” the highlight of the game “. Otherwise, your hero will clearly not reach the end of his remaining 66 days of life! As already mentioned in the previous information, we should not expect multiplayer. At least not in the main adventure (which should last between 30 and 40 hours): S-GAME does not rule out working on multiplayer-oriented endgame content and many other things, such as missions Of type rogue lite.
A taste of Phantom Blade Zero… in 2024!
Today, what interests us is what emerged from the presence of the game at the ChinaJoy fair. Unfortunately, if the game was indeed represented on the occasion of this 2023 edition, it was not “physically” present since no new gameplay video was revealed. However, this did not prevent the CEO of the studioSoulframe Liang, to come back to some points as well as to make additional declarations with our colleagues from Wccftech And during a dedicated presentation broadcast on YouTube (to be found below).
This exchange made it possible to understand the way in which the S-GAME teams will begin this transition between creation on mobiles and the development of software on computer And PS5. The use of the Unreal Engine is also not foreign to the desire of the teams to launch a new challenge. since the Epic Games engine allows the small studio that they are to pursue each step with less apprehension. Better, the engine allows them to boost their adventure thanks to its many tools such as Lumen (“ create a gloomy and foggy atmosphere without making it too dark “) and Nanite (“ use high quality assets without affecting the framerate “).
The icing on the cake, AMD and Nvidia were also keen to support S-GAME and their project using ray-tracing hardware solutions. Blessed bread therefore for Phantom Blade Zero which is based in particular on “ speed, variability and fluidity » and who asks « to maintain a stable frame rate while producing impressive visual effects ». Thanks to this, the members of the studio set themselves the goal of reaching the sacrosanct 4K / 60 IPS (or even a little less, between 45 and 50) on PS5. Anyway, they intend to offer, at a minimum, two modes: one at 2K / 60 IPS, the other at 4K / 30 IPS. The concern is that there is still (a lot) of bread on the board and that the software is not about to arrive since the development only really started at the beginning of the year 2022. Admittedly , this pushes the output window away but S-GAME has a surprise to compensate: the release of a thirty-minute demo in 2024. What to wait patiently for the official release!