Phantom Blade Zero | Review Thread

[Alabtrosmyster]

Gamers like shiny new stuff, those companies banking on existing IPs, sequels and what not are completely off the mark.

How many completely unknown games have we seen selling bangers in the last few years? No attachment to anything else than... Just looking cool?

 

[Ico]

Dumbass Sony funded this game for console exclusivity meanwhile 90% of Chinese players still bought it on Steam anyway lol. What an unserious company, basically knows nothing outside their CA bubble.

Its just the usual retelling of "steam does nothing and still got the W". Sony did the heavy lifting but who got the % of the store sales for free was Steam on China. Steam must be as happy as Danja this week.

 

[Yurinka]

Its just the usual retelling of "steam does nothing and still got the W". Sony did the heavy lifting but who got the % of the store sales for free was Steam on China. Steam must be as happy as Danja this week.

Sony's initiatives like China Hero Project and India Hero Project or supporting games from the region in general like this one is basically to get more games from these area of the world that increases the diversity -something western players may also like, as happened with Wukong and this game- of their catalog and not only improves their game sales there, but also helps them sell more games and consoles in the region plus increases the interest from local devs to make games for PS for more future titles.

It is working, early in this generation Sony reported that China became way more important than it was for the same PS4 period launch aligned, and later with Wukong it got a big bump there (which may also happen with this game).

Having achieved their goal, Sony doesn't care if the dev also publishes the game in PC, something the studio pretty likely these studios must do to have a sustainable business.

 

[Kokoloko]

Gamers like shiny new stuff, those companies banking on existing IPs, sequels and what not are completely off the mark.

How many completely unknown games have we seen selling bangers in the last few years? No attachment to anything else than... Just looking cool?

A mixture is always good

New ips sell well. Elden Ring, CyberPunk, Wu Kong, Horizon

Old IPs can make come backs, like Onimusha and Baldurs Gate 3

And Every gen games can hit new heights. Like Zelda BOTW, Animal Crossing, God of War etc.

Nothing is off limits if they do a good job. Old ips, new ips, niche ips, ip's with up and down success

 

[Yrassinad]

Gamers like shiny new stuff, those companies banking on existing IPs, sequels and what not are completely off the mark.

How many completely unknown games have we seen selling bangers in the last few years? No attachment to anything else than... Just looking cool?

Many of such games also flop and you just never hear about them. And it's a lot harder to gamble on a completely new IP or gameplay concept when a game is being made in the US and costs $200-300m at least. The reason we see so many sequels, remasters/remakes and general IP milking is because budgets have gotten to the point where a modest success is no longer enough and every game needs to be a blockbuster hit. And greenlighting an extension of something that has proven to be successful in the past is the most logical choice in that case, even if it's not always the optimal one.

Also in this case a lot of the popularity is coming from China, who only just started putting out AAA games in recent years and who have a massive population of gamers that have been largely cut off from Western games in the past few decades. The competition for games in China is far lower because it's still quite a budding market.

Sony's initiatives like China Hero Project and India Hero Project or supporting games from the region in general like this one is basically to get more games from these area of the world that increases the diversity -something western players may also like, as happened with Wukong and this game- of their catalog and not only improves their game sales there, but also helps them sell more games and consoles in the region plus increases the interest from local devs to make games for PS for more future titles.

It is working, early in this generation Sony reported that China became way more important than it was for the same PS4 period launch aligned, and later with Wukong it got a big bump there (which may also happen with this game).

Having achieved their goal, Sony doesn't care if the dev also publishes the game in PC, something the studio pretty likely these studios must do to have a sustainable business.

Beating PS4 launch-aligned in China, when consoles were banned there until 2 years after the PS4 came out, just says more about how little PS4 sold. PS5 is selling even worse in China than it does in Japan, despite the country having 12x the population.

I think the main motivator for Sony is the fact that these Chinese games can be popular in the west as well and it's going to be a lot easier for them to secure exclusivity for them than on American, European or even Japanese games.

 

[Yurinka]

Beating PS4 launch-aligned in China, when consoles were banned there until 2 years after the PS4 came out, just says more about how little PS4 sold. PS5 is selling even worse in China than it does in Japan, despite the country having 12x the population.

I think the main motivator for Sony is the fact that these Chinese games can be popular in the west as well and it's going to be a lot easier for them to secure exclusivity for them than on American, European or even Japanese games.

PS4 got oficially released in mainland China in March 2015, but was already available in Hong Kong and Taiwan (where mainline Chinese players traditionally bought console games, since they aren't limited by the mainline China regulator approvals) since December 2013, a month after it got released in Japan or the west. And there always has been there the grey (and import) console market, so the impact of the ban was real but partial and not that big.

Niko partners claimed late August 2024 (around Wukong release) PS5 was selling launch aligned in China twice faster than PS4. Way before this Wukong bump, I think it was back in 2022 Sony said that China was PS5's top 6 country, while in the same period for PS4 (I assume counting Hong Kong and Taiwan) it was top 11. Pretty likely since then and particularly after the Phantom Blade Zero launch window, China climbed some positions more in that ranking.

All consoles sell less in China than in Japan because Japan always have been one of the most console focused gaming countries while China traditionally has been one of the less console oriented and more F2P oriented.

Said by themselves, with the China Hero Project Sony aimed to mainly grow their console and game sales in the region, plus attract and grow local development support to their platform, and in a more secondary priority to provide a larger and more diverse catalog for the people of the rest of the world.

And seems to be working.

 

[Yrassinad]

PS4 got oficially released in mainland China in March 2015, but was already available in Hong Kong and Taiwan (where mainline Chinese players traditionally bought console games, since they aren't limited by the mainline China regulator approvals) since December 2013, a month after it got released in Japan or the west. And there always has been there the grey (and import) console market, so the impact of the ban was real but partial and not that big.

Niko partners claimed late August 2024 (around Wukong release) PS5 was selling launch aligned in China twice faster than PS4. Way before this Wukong bump, I think it was back in 2022 Sony said that China was PS5's top 6 country, while in the same period for PS4 (I assume counting Hong Kong and Taiwan) it was top 11. Pretty likely since then and particularly after the Phantom Blade Zero launch window, China climbed some positions more in that ranking.

All consoles sell less in China than in Japan because Japan always have been one of the most console focused gaming countries while China traditionally has been one of the less console oriented and more F2P oriented.

Said by themselves, with the China Hero Project Sony aimed to mainly grow their console and game sales in the region, plus attract and grow local development support to their platform, and in a more secondary priority to provide a larger and more diverse catalog for the people of the rest of the world.

And seems to be working.

That's a whole load of text just to talk about comparisons of small number vs. even smaller number.

If you want to argue PS has been growing in China, sure, it has been. But that's because there was pretty much nothing to begin with and because they weren't even trying before. And even while they have stuff like China Hero Project, it seems Nintendo is making more headway in the Chinese market. But both are pretty much negligible and completely irrelevant over there. China is a PC/mobile country and that's never going to change. Gaming will become streaming-only long before consoles will achieve a meaningful market share there.

 

[Yurinka]

That's a whole load of text just to talk about comparisons of small number vs. even smaller number.

If you want to argue PS has been growing in China, sure, it has been. But that's because there was pretty much nothing to begin with and because they weren't even trying before. And even while they have stuff like China Hero Project, it seems Nintendo is making more headway in the Chinese market. But both are pretty much negligible and completely irrelevant over there. China is a PC/mobile country and that's never going to change. Gaming will become streaming-only long before consoles will achieve a meaningful market share there.

China having climbed from top 11 to top 6 country for PS before the Wukong and Phantom Blade Zero isn't small numbers. Pretty likely now it's the top 4 or 5, and who knows if already is or ends being top 3 before the end of the PS5 life cycle.

Like many countries China is a mobile > PC > console market, but in their case consoles had a way smaller percentage of the userbase, which in the last decade or so highly increased. It's also worth mentioning that despite being a small percentace it's from a total of a huge over 700M active players populartion. It's also worth mentioning that even after the ban around two thirds of the consoles sold in China are from the gray market and that mainland Chinese players often buy their consoles and games from Hong Kong or Taiwan.

So they aren't small numbers, and even less negligible or irrelevant.

 

[Yrassinad]

China having climbed from top 11 to top 6 country for PS before the Wukong and Phantom Blade Zero isn't small numbers. Pretty likely now it's the top 4 or 5, and who knows if already is or ends being top 3 before the end of the PS5 life cycle.

Like many countries China is a mobile > PC > console market, but in their case consoles had a way smaller percentage of the userbase, which in the last decade or so highly increased. It's also worth mentioning that despite being a small percentace it's from a total of a huge over 700M active players populartion. It's also worth mentioning that even after the ban around two thirds of the consoles sold in China are from the gray market and that mainland Chinese players often buy their consoles and games from Hong Kong or Taiwan.

So they aren't small numbers, and even less negligible or irrelevant.

You're again falling into this stupid "ranked list fallacy" where you think that just because something places high up on a ranked list or is moving up said list, it says anything about the number behind those positions. It doesn't, as we can see from the whole Wolverine sales drama.

Being top 11 as a country with 1.4bn people is already a joke, and moving up to position 6 still is. Considering a country only needs to buy like 5m consoles to be in the top 5.

We are literally talking about <5m consoles here. For a population of 1.4bn. The reason 5m consoles sold in Germany or whatever might be impressive is because it only has 80m residents, and that 5m consoles might mean anywhere from 30-50% of the non-mobile gaming market in that country. In China's case 5m consoles is probably not even 5% of the non-mobile market.

Consoles are and always will be completely irrelevant in China. Yes, by virtue of China being fucking huge with a massive population even getting a single digit percentage control of that market will be a nice boost for a company and potentially make it worth more than controlling half of the market of a European country. But within the context of the Chinese gaming market it's a joke. It reminds me of this whole talk about how much PC gaming is growing in Japan. Yeah, no shit, it was nearly non-existent before. So we can talk about rocket growth of the Japanese PC market now that some people finally started giving it a shot. But in reality it's still less than 15% of the market there.

 

[Vertigo]

It’s selling exceptionally well on NA PSN still holding #6 spot.

Umm… hmmm

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Review Thread 'Phantom Blade Zero after 47hrs and 97% completion... What a journey!'

6 Nov 2026

Platform: PS5 Pro
Mode: Performance (60fps). There is balanced using 120Hz and 30fps graphics mode.
Version: Deluxe Edition
Difficulty: Pathbreaker / Hellwalker (normal/hard, but they feel the same)

What a feast! Didn't expect the game to be this lengthy and meaty. Lots of content and lots of variety in the game! It's a semi-open-world game, which strikes a good balance for people who like open world (like myself) and...

• Bo_Hazem
• Replies: 0
• Forum: Gaming

• 
• 
• 

 

[Yurinka]

You're again falling into this stupid "ranked list fallacy" where you think that just because something places high up on a ranked list or is moving up said list, it says anything about the number behind those positions. It doesn't, as we can see from the whole Wolverine sales drama.

Being top 11 as a country with 1.4bn people is already a joke, and moving up to position 6 still is. Considering a country only needs to buy like 5m consoles to be in the top 5.

We are literally talking about <5m consoles here. For a population of 1.4bn. The reason 5m consoles sold in Germany or whatever might be impressive is because it only has 80m residents, and that 5m consoles might mean anywhere from 30-50% of the non-mobile gaming market in that country. In China's case 5m consoles is probably not even 5% of the non-mobile market.

Consoles are and always will be completely irrelevant in China. Yes, by virtue of China being fucking huge with a massive population even getting a single digit percentage control of that market will be a nice boost for a company and potentially make it worth more than controlling half of the market of a European country. But within the context of the Chinese gaming market it's a joke. It reminds me of this whole talk about how much PC gaming is growing in Japan. Yeah, no shit, it was nearly non-existent before. So we can talk about rocket growth of the Japanese PC market now that some people finally started giving it a shot. But in reality it's still less than 15% of the market there.

China was before the Wukong and Phantom Blade bumps top 6 country for PS, so pretty likely will be above now. In Nintendo if they sold more pretty likely may be above in their ranking too.

That is relevant for the console market, and particularly when the previous gen were in top 11 because shows an important growth there. And if there is a huge amount of people (many of them players in other gaming platforms) shows that there is a big opportunity to get a big potential future growth there that isn't likely in the traditional markets.

The Chinese gaming population is twice the total (not only the gaming one) USA population. So doesn't matter if that is a small percent of the total Chinese population: it's the largest gaming market in the world.

China is so relevant that many western companies adapt their games to make them China friendly and companies like Sony keep investing in Chinese teams to keep growing there, and big western publishers partner with/sell a portion of their company to local companies to grow there.

Obviously yes, like in the west, in Asia the biggest gaming platforms by users and revenue is mobile, and Asia in general (and Japan or China in particular) are particularly more mobile gaming focused markets than the west, they're top key markets for mobile gaming.

But this doesn't matter to see they're also top key markets for console and in case of China for PC too, because even if there's some overlap between mobile gaming and console/PC gaming, most mobile gaming players aren't interested to play in console/PC and viceversa.

For console market what is important is if the country represents a key part of its worldwide sales and users, and if the country has growth potential for their market.

Japan game revenue (2025 revenue, Famitsu Game White Paper 2026 data by Kadokawa ASCII Research Lab shared August 2026): pink is mobile, blue is PC, unsaturated olive/camo green is console digital, saturated green is console physical

In Japan since around covid/PS5 release mobile kept pretty much the same, console physical kept slightly declining until Switch 2 launch and both console digital and PC grew considerably in the in 2020 being now pretty similar. PC over twice the revenue than console physical. For 2025 PC was 3,101, a 12% of the total 25,885. Console was 3,050+1,354=440.4B yen ($2.78B), a 17.01% of the total

Niko Partners' estimated back in June that China's gaming market would generate this year almost twice the revenue of Japan and Korea combined. 58.6% of $91.8B is $63.84B of yearly gaming revenue from China.

Newzoo estimated back in June that for 2025 the worldwide console market was $44.7B and that Chinese global gaming revenue for 2025 was $54.6B:

Newzoo estimated the Chinese gaming revenue for 2025 was $54.6B (chart from the white paper of the Spanish gaming trade association), and agrees that China generates over twice the JP+KR gaming revenue combined.

Edit 1 - I did some extra research and found Chinese market details directly from the white paper of the Chinese gaming trade association: According to the 2025 China Game Industry Report released by the Game Publishing Comittee of China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association:

• Total game revenue in China during 2025 was RMB 350.789 billion (with current yuan->dollar exchange, $52.4B), split into:
  • Mobile market: 257.076B yuan (up YoY 7.92%, it's 73.29% of the Chinese market)
  • PC downloadable market: 78.160 B yuan (up YoY 14.97%, it's 22.28% of the Chinese market)
  • HTML5 mini-games: 53.535B yuan (up YoY 34.39%, it's 15.26% of the Chinese market)
  • Console market: 8.362B yuan ($1.25B, up YoY 86.33%, it's 2.38% of the Chinese market, doesn't specify if includes or not hardware or subs)
  • Web game market: 4.325B yuan (down YoY 6.74%, it's 1.23% of the Chinese market)

They mention there: "The console game market achieved sales revenue of 8.362 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 86.33%, maintaining growth for three consecutive years." I personally assume that thanks to mainly Phantom Blade Zero the growth will continue during 2026 for a fourth year.

Edit 2 / TLDR: Let's roughly compare the console game / sofware revenue of some key countries from their national gaming trade association white papers:

• UK (2025) 2490M£ (console digital) + 319M£ (physical, assuming all is console) = 2809M£ / $3.75B
• Japan (2025) 440.4B yen / $2.78B
• China (2025) 8.362B yuan / $1.25B (doesn't mention if includes hardware or subs)
• Germany (2025) 1847M€ / $2.06B (or 1108M€ / $1.24B if not counting 'online gaming services')
• France (2025) (out of 5.8B€, digital console sw 18% and physical console sw 7%. So 25%/1.45€/$1.62B)
• South Korea (2025) 1.1836T won / $867.9M
• Italy (2025) 643M€ - 57.9M (2nd hand) + 90.3M (console subs) = 675.4M€ / $753M
• Spain (2025) 234 M€ (physical games) + 509 M€ (console+PC digital games + addons) + 245€ (console game subs) = 988M € / $1.1B if counting everything (but also includes PC)

Please notice these trade associations don't follow an standard to report console game revenue. Some include or don't include count PC, bundled copies or second hand estimation market for physical. Some may or may not include addons and game subs in digital. And currency exchange to USD has been made today with current exchange via Google, and doesn't include any inflation correction.

National trade associations of other key markets like USA (by far the biggest one), Canada or Brazil don't provide console specific software revenue in their yearly reports. I didn't include market research firms public/free estimations for these few countries because they're estimations made in previous years and/or their estimations wildly vary between them. But may expand the post with them.

 

[Yrassinad]

China was before the Wukong and Phantom Blade bumps top 6 country for PS, so pretty likely will be above now. In Nintendo if they sold more pretty likely may be above in their ranking too.

That is relevant for the console market, and particularly when the previous gen were in top 11 because shows an important growth there. And if there is a huge amount of people (many of them players in other gaming platforms) shows that there is a big opportunity to get a big potential future growth there that isn't likely in the traditional markets.

The Chinese gaming population is twice the total (not only the gaming one) USA population. So doesn't matter if that is a small percent of the total Chinese population: it's the largest gaming market in the world.

China is so relevant that many western companies adapt their games to make them China friendly and companies like Sony keep investing in Chinese teams to keep growing there, and big western publishers partner with/sell a portion of their company to local companies to grow there.

Obviously yes, like in the west, in Asia the biggest gaming platforms by users and revenue is mobile, and Asia in general (and Japan or China in particular) are particularly more mobile gaming focused markets than the west, they're top key markets for mobile gaming.

But this doesn't matter to see they're also top key markets for console and in case of China for PC too, because even if there's some overlap between mobile gaming and console/PC gaming, most mobile gaming players aren't interested to play in console/PC and viceversa.

For console market what is important is if the country represents a key part of its worldwide sales and users, and if the country has growth potential for their market.

Japan game revenue (2025 revenue, Famitsu Game White Paper 2026 data by Kadokawa ASCII Research Lab shared August 2026): pink is mobile, blue is PC, unsaturated olive/camo green is console digital, saturated green is console physical

In Japan since around covid/PS5 release mobile kept pretty much the same, console physical kept slightly declining until Switch 2 launch and both console digital and PC grew considerably in the in 2020 being now pretty similar. PC over twice the revenue than console physical. For 2025 PC was 3,101, a 12% of the total 25,885. Console was 3,050+1,354=440.4B yen ($2.78B), a 17.01% of the total

Niko Partners' estimated back in June that China's gaming market would generate this year almost twice the revenue of Japan and Korea combined. 58.6% of $91.8B is $63.84B of yearly gaming revenue from China.

Newzoo estimated back in June that for 2025 the worldwide console market was $44.7B and that Chinese global gaming revenue for 2025 was $54.6B:

Newzoo estimated the Chinese gaming revenue for 2025 was $54.6B (chart from the white paper of the Spanish gaming trade association), and agrees that China generates over twice the JP+KR gaming revenue combined.

Edit 1 - I did some extra research and found Chinese market details directly from the white paper of the Chinese gaming trade association: According to the 2025 China Game Industry Report released by the Game Publishing Comittee of China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association:

• Total game revenue in China during 2025 was RMB 350.789 billion (with current yuan->dollar exchange, $52.4B), split into:
  • Mobile market: 257.076B yuan (up YoY 7.92%, it's 73.29% of the Chinese market)
  • PC downloadable market: 78.160 B yuan (up YoY 14.97%, it's 22.28% of the Chinese market)
  • HTML5 mini-games: 53.535B yuan (up YoY 34.39%, it's 15.26% of the Chinese market)
  • Console market: 8.362B yuan ($1.25B, up YoY 86.33%, it's 2.38% of the Chinese market, doesn't specify if includes or not hardware or subs)
  • Web game market: 4.325B yuan (down YoY 6.74%, it's 1.23% of the Chinese market)

They mention there: "The console game market achieved sales revenue of 8.362 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 86.33%, maintaining growth for three consecutive years." I personally assume that thanks to mainly Phantom Blade Zero the growth will continue during 2026 for a fourth year.

Edit 2 / TLDR: Let's roughly compare the console game / sofware revenue of some key countries from their national gaming trade association white papers:

• UK (2025) 2490M£ (console digital) + 319M£ (physical, assuming all is console) = 2809M£ / $3.75B
• Japan (2025) 440.4B yen / $2.78B
• China (2025) 8.362B yuan / $1.25B (doesn't mention if includes hardware or subs)
• Germany (2025) 1847M€ / $2.06B (or 1108M€ / $1.24B if not counting 'online gaming services')
• France (2025) (out of 5.8B€, digital console sw 18% and physical console sw 7%. So 25%/1.45€/$1.62B)
• South Korea (2025) 1.1836T won / $867.9M
• Italy (2025) 643M€ - 57.9M (2nd hand) + 90.3M (console subs) = 675.4M€ / $753M
• Spain (2025) 234 M€ (physical games) + 509 M€ (console+PC digital games + addons) + 245€ (console game subs) = 988M € / $1.1B if counting everything (but also includes PC)

Please notice these trade associations don't follow an standard to report console game revenue. Some include or don't include count PC, bundled copies or second hand estimation market for physical. Some may or may not include addons and game subs in digital. And currency exchange to USD has been made today with current exchange via Google, and doesn't include any inflation correction.

National trade associations of other key markets like USA (by far the biggest one), Canada or Brazil don't provide console specific software revenue in their yearly reports. I didn't include market research firms public/free estimations for these few countries because they're estimations made in previous years and/or their estimations wildly vary between them. But may expand the post with them.

You don't have to explain the importance of the Chinese market to me. I'm well aware. I'm saying consoles have no meaningful presence in China and likely never will. Yes, it's a huge market so even getting a single digit % of that market will benefit a company. But anyone who thinks console is going to become a main staple in China is fooling themselves. It will take far too long for consoles to catch up and penetrate the market (we're talking decades here), and by that time cloud streaming will probably become a much more dominant way of playing games.

 

[Prometheus]

This game is an enigma.

It's fun - but the combat is both easy and hard at the same time.

Parrying is key and your timing has to be critical. However I have found parrying to also be quite inconsistent. It's as if the key doesn't register.

However when you're attacking, there are no combos. You're just button mashing Square/X and then pressing Triangle/Y.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

This game is an enigma.

It's fun - but the combat is both easy and hard at the same time.

Parrying is key and your timing has to be critical. However I have found parrying to also be quite inconsistent. It's as if the key doesn't register.

However when you're attacking, there are no combos. You're just button mashing Square/X and then pressing Triangle/Y.

To be honest I rarely use square, lol. But there are combos and I've tried them. I usually start with R1+triangle and mix it up from there, but when the guard is broken mashing triangle is what the game expects from you as it hits harder and consumes nothing in that state and before regaining stamina/Sha-Chi I switch blades.

You see all kinds of crazy moves when you fully upgrade. I also find that triangle in many weapons makes you leap and shortcut major distances to the other enemy. No matter how you mix your fight it's always glorious to watch.

 

[Prometheus]

To be honest I rarely use square, lol. But there are combos and I've tried them. I usually start with R1+triangle and mix it up from there, but when the guard is broken mashing triangle is what the game expects from you as it hits harder and consumes nothing in that state and before regaining stamina/Sha-Chi I switch blades.

You see all kinds of crazy moves when you fully upgrade. I also find that triangle in many weapons makes you leap and shortcut major distances to the other enemy. No matter how you mix your fight it's always glorious to watch.

I'm getting annihilated by the 3 faces boss and the woman in red in the first area.

I beat the sickle guy easily.

When should I come back for the first two?

 

[Bo_Hazem]

I'm getting annihilated by the 3 faces boss and the woman in red in the first area.

I beat the sickle guy easily.

When should I come back for the first two?

Very minor spoilers:

If you leave the second area before killing the red lily woman you'll get locked out of one mission, more like gets glitched. The 3 faced woman is just too hard at your level so maybe try again when you enter the third area? Hitting lvl 10 should be manageable for the red lily, but come to the 3faced bitch when you reached a vendor that upgrades your medicine. Play side quests and explore to get stronger. When you max out at 30 + tempering souls of your weapons the game starts to feel easy but still entertaining.