// PC GAMER — GAMING
Phantom Blade Zero review: Feel gud, not git gud
Feel gud, not git gud; Phantom Blade Zero's action stands out for the ways it sheds the Souls and Sekiro formulas.
PC Gamer's got your back
Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.
What is it A martial arts action epicRelease date October 28, 2026Expect to pay £49.99/$59.99Publisher S-GameDeveloper S-GameReviewed on Intel Core i5 12400F, Radeon RX 6800 XT, 32GB RAM,Multiplayer NoSteam Deck UnsupportedLink Steam
Ever since I started Phantom Blade Zero, I've had a scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon playing on repeat in my head. It's the sequence when Jen and Shu Lien face-off against each other in the martial arts hall. Jen is wielding the Green Destiny, a sword which can seemingly slice through all other weapons, but as it does, Shu Lien adapts.
She uses blades, spears, hook swords, a metal club, but every weapon she picks up, she immediately wields with martial prowess—it might be a bit of a wuxia trope, but it can't help but encapsulate the experience of playing Phantom Blade Zero. The protagonist, Soul's old comrade, Lei Dang, echoes this sentiment when you meet him: "You truly are a martial prodigy - you can master anything you learn."
In a crowded market of action games often borrowing more from Souls and Sekiro than they rightly should, Phantom Blade Zero sheds these strictures in favour of a martial arts adventure that's more about feeling good than getting good. It's not just the endless array of weapons and Phantom Edges (essentially Sekiro's Shinobi Tools) that Soul wields with effortless martial grace, it's about how the game makes you feel like a master.
Phantom Blade Zero managed to convince me—a Dark Souls veteran with 860 hours in Elden Ring—that perhaps you don't have to struggle against bosses to make them meaningful. Maybe a fight or two is enough when a game is packed full of incredible boss battles, each encounter feels great, and the experience is epic enough to satisfy you that you've seen everything it had to show.
Phantom Blade Zero is really a game for those who revel in action combat and its spectacle, but that's not to say it's super easy—it just has a way of making you feel like you're better than you probably are. During one fight with a drunken swordmaster and his flying blade, I parried and Soul dropped onto his back, grabbed the blade between his feet, then forward flipped, hurling the sword back at the boss. I literally pressed one button to do this.
Not to say it's super easy—it just has a way of making you feel like you're better than you probably are.
There are so many jaw-dropping moments—elaborate parries and executions, or dynamic attacks where Soul automatically engages an entire group of enemies—that basically had me yelling at the screen because I couldn't believe what I'd just pulled off. Like any good kung-fu movie, it's effortlessly stylish, but rather than the all-too-familiar drudgery that can stem from Soulslikes crushing you into the dirt and making you feel your skill level, Phantom Blade Zero more often tries to uplift you, reveling in the roleplay fantasy of a martial master.