Phantom Blade Zero devs say its interconnected world is 'like the Souls games before Elden Ring'—which has turned my interest into attention

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Secrets, nooks, and crannies.

The protagonist of Phantom Blade Zero faces down a dancing lion with his sword drawn.
(Image credit: S-GAMES / PlayStation)

Described by PC Gamer's own Richard Stanton as "Sekiro on a drunken night out", Phantom Blade Zero looks pretty dang intriguing. Developed by S-Game (and making its debut in the PlayStation Showcase last year) Phantom Blade Zero does indeed look absolutely slammed with high-octane nonsense—and I mean this affectionately. I like nonsense a lot.

Its jet fuel combat had my interest, but a recent interview by our friends at GamesRadar with director "Soulframe" Liang doubles down on a similar sentiment shared in a PlayStation blog last year, and that has my attention: "It's just like the old Souls games … You move around and explore in a seamless map, it's just not a huge open-world map. But every region is connected together seamlessly."

Soulframe seems keen to stop the soulslike comparisons there, though—in a Q&A last month, they were adamant that the team was angling more for "combo-driven, heart-pumping combat that is hectic, rewarding, and exhilarating." The team's taken inspiration from the soulslike genre for its environments, sure, but little else: "There will be difficulty options, and you won't have to face respawned mobs after you die or interact with checkpoints."

Harvey Randall
Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.