Phantom Blade Zero arrives on PS5 and PC on 29 October, and the first reviews, which went live on Monday, already put it among the most anticipated action games of the autumn. Built by S-Game on Unreal Engine 5, the dark wuxia action game follows Soul, a warrior wrongly accused of murdering his master, who has just 66 days left. Before you hit download, a few practical questions come up: when exactly it unlocks, how much drive space you’ll need, which languages are supported and which difficulty to pick. Some of the answers come straight from the studio, while others rely on outside reports that deserve a little more caution.
At a glance
Phantom Blade Zero unlocks at 2am GMT on 29 October, and pre-loading opens on 27 October.
Full voice acting is available in English and Simplified Chinese, with subtitles in fifteen languages.
There are four difficulty modes, from a story-focused option to a countdown mode you can only open after finishing the game.
Unlocking at 2am GMT on 29 October, with pre-loading from the 27th
S-Game founder Soulframe Liang confirmed the date in his PlayStation Blog post on the dedicated State of Play: Phantom Blade Zero launches on 29 October, or 28 October in the US and a handful of other regions. It’s sold on PS5, Steam and the Epic Games Store. The unlock is set for 2am GMT, which works out at 7pm PT on the 28th for players on the US west coast.
Pre-loading opens on 27 October, two days before launch, according to DLCompare’s report on the game’s file size and release time. Clear some room first, because the PS5 version weighs in at 134.857GB, a figure pulled from the PlayStation Network database by the PlayStation Game Size account. For everything else coming out this week, our video game release calendar lists each date alongside its source.
Phantom Blade Zero price, editions and PC specs
On Steam, the standard edition of Phantom Blade Zero costs £49.99 and the Digital Deluxe Edition £59.99. An Xbox version will follow later, according to DLCompare, though S-Game has yet to give it a date.
On PC, the minimum spec for Phantom Blade Zero calls for a GeForce GTX 1660 or a Radeon RX 5500 XT, 16GB of RAM and an SSD, for 1080p at 30 frames per second with upscaling switched on, as listed on the game’s official Steam page. If you’re after 1440p at 60 frames per second, the studio recommends an RTX 3060 Ti or an RX 6700 XT, paired with a Core i5-10600K or a Ryzen 5 5600X. It runs on 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 only.
English voices, fifteen subtitle languages and Donnie Yen in the cast
The Steam page for Phantom Blade Zero lists full audio in English and Simplified Chinese only, while thirteen other languages, French, German and Japanese among them, cover the interface and subtitles. As for the story, Soul is hunted by his former brothers in arms and has 66 days to unpick the conspiracy that condemned him.
One familiar face from action cinema is involved. As S-Game explained when pre-orders opened, in a statement carried by RPG Site, Donnie Yen has been the game’s creative consultant since 2023 and provides the face and motion capture for Mó Yuan, Soul’s father. He has also worked on the combat design to give it the feel of Hong Kong kung fu films.
More than 30 weapons and Phantom Edges you can reforge
The arsenal sits at the heart of Phantom Blade Zero. The studio promises more than 30 main weapons and 25 secondary weapons, known as Phantom Edges, which you can mix and match to suit the way you fight. Beating certain enemies also hands you their weapon and the techniques that come with it.
Any upgraded weapon can be reforged at any time, which returns every material you put into it so you can reinvest in another. It pays to keep a few options to hand, too. During the August State of Play, ActuGaming noted that the game pushes you to switch weapons depending on how enemies are protected, since a thin blade won’t get far against a shield.
Four difficulty modes, from a relaxed story run to a countdown
Phantom Blade Zero offers four difficulty settings, which ActuGaming broke down after S-Game’s presentation. Wayfarer lets you focus on the story and Pathbreaker is the standard experience. Hellwalker borrows from fighting games, so bosses follow patterns that are harder to read and react more to the way you play.
The final mode, Sixty-Six Days, keeps Hellwalker’s combat and adds a countdown that ticks down with every failure until your run ends. It only becomes available once you’ve finished the game on Pathbreaker or Hellwalker.
How long it lasts, multiple endings and early reviews
The only estimate for the length of Phantom Blade Zero dates back to January 2025, when MP1st, citing interviews published in China, put the main story at 20 to 30 hours with roughly 20 more hours of side content. Those side quests matter, since some of them open up new story paths, according to S-Game’s blog post. DLCompare also mentions eight possible endings and a New Game Plus mode that opens after a full playthrough.
Reviews of Phantom Blade Zero have been live since the early hours of 26 October. GamesRadar calls it a game of the year contender, Push Square ranks it among the generation’s greatest action experiences and VGC describes a damn good action game that shouldn’t be ignored.