The domestic AAA wuxia action game Phantom Blade Zero is launching soon, with less than 20 hours remaining until unlock. Producer Liang Qiwei posted a long article on his personal Weibo, reviewing the twenty-year creative journey from the birth of Rain Blood to the present, as well as the behind-the-scenes story of Phantom Blade Zero's multi-year development.
For Liang Qiwei, the origin of Phantom Blade Zero traces back twenty years. During his student years, he created the indie game Rain Blood: Dead Town using RPG Maker, which used traditional wuxia as a foundation, incorporating concepts like human modification and parallel worlds to build the雏形of the "Phantom Realm" worldview. What was initially just spiritual sustenance during his studies eventually evolved step by step into an important work spanning his entire career.
More than three years ago, S-Games brought the first trailer of the then-immature Phantom Blade Zero to the PlayStation showcase. At that time, the studio was not large, and the Phantom Blade IP was relatively unfamiliar to global players. After the showcase, the team paused other projects in development, concentrating all resources on this title to polish content quality. The team completed thousands of hours of motion capture, conducted field 3D scans in urban and rural areas across China; meanwhile, they invited martial arts masters related to lion dancing, Emei swordsmanship, and Shaolin拳法 to serve as action directors. Led by action director Yang Liu, the motion capture team, under the advisory co-creation of Donnie Yen, designed the entire set of attack, parry, dodge, combo, and execution movements.
Liang Qiwei mentioned that Phantom Blade Zero does not intend to be a hardcore work with high barriers. The gameplay is intuitive to pick up, and the operational feel is close to the logic of action games familiar to players. The team re-evaluated the design concepts of ARPGs over the years,Reassemblyclassic gameplay to balance the experience for ordinary players while retaining sufficient combat satisfaction for those who prefer high-difficulty challenges.
During development, the team collected player feedback at numerous exhibitions domestically and internationally, continuously optimizing many subtle aspects: players can freely adjust the sound effects of sword clashes to customize the auditory experience of blade locking; the PS5 version offers three preset control schemes, while the PC version supports fully customizable key bindings; the game also completes multi-specification screen adaptation, covering monitors, handhelds, and even ultra-wide monitors with aspect ratios above 3:1.
But beyond technology, Liang Qiwei believes what made this work possible was the team's inherent persistence and passion. Several key combat levels in the game were led by team members born after 2000; most character and scene concept art was independently drawn by artist Michael; composer Bo Caisheng (A-Bo) single-handedly created over ten hours of original soundtrack, handling composition, performance, and mixing, and also participated in implementing the game's audio control system.
During development, Liang Qiwei repeatedly made "suffocating decisions": overturning completed content of acceptable quality, choosing to reconstruct or even directly discard it. But relying on the team's understanding and persistence, they still poured all their ideas and creativity into the game. In his vision, the core of Phantom Blade Zero is to let players truly feel powerful and cool. This power is not instilled through narration or text, but comes from every slash, parry, dodge, and execution. The pressure from strong enemies, the oppressive Jianghu story, and the setting of the protagonist having only sixty-six days left to live are ultimately designed to let players experience this strength from the outside in during combat.
From early indie titles made with the RPG Maker engine to the domestically produced AAA wuxia masterpiece launched globally, Phantom Blade Zero carries Liang Qiwei's twenty-year creative journey. At the same time, Phantom Blade Zero is a sincere gift from this group of game-loving developers to all players.
Below is the original text of S's long article:
Rationality and Madness
Now, there are less than 20 hours left until the launch of Phantom Blade Zero.
Twenty years ago, I started making my first indie game, Rain Blood: Dead Town, while in school. In this amateur game made with RPG Maker, I used immature technology to construct a fantasy world in my mind: a "Phantom Realm" based on traditional Chinese wuxia, yet incorporating elements like human modification and parallel worlds.
At that time, I did not know where my future life and career would lead. Making games was originally just a spiritual sustenance for me during my studies, but unknowingly, it became the most important part of my life.
More than three years ago, when we brought the first, rather rough trailer of Phantom Blade Zero to the PlayStation showcase, we looked like a new studio that was somewhat audacious, rashly exposing a semi-finished product to the scrutiny of a global audience. "Phantom Blade" was just another original IP, and its world, characters, and stories were completely unfamiliar to most people.
But from that moment on, we embarked on a wonderful and epic journey.
We cut other projects in development, constantly expanded production scale, improved work precision, and gathered technology, experience, resources, and assistance from all sides to the best of our ability: thousands of hours of motion capture, 3D scans conducted by visiting towns and villages across China, lion dancing guided by Guangdong lion dance masters, sword formations guided by Emei swordsmanship masters, and拳法guided by Shaolin monks. In addition, we assembled an efficient and professional martial arts motion capture team, led by action director Yang Liu, and under the guidance of our idol—Donnie Yen, created countless attack, defense, dodge, combo, and execution movements for the game...
Regarding Phantom Blade Zero, you may have seen many reviews, but in reality, you might not need to read too many. When you enter the game tomorrow, you will find that all gameplay feels natural, simple, and familiar, but we have recreated these familiar mechanics and combined them into a new whole. Over the years, we have deeply reflected on many "ancestral rules" of ARPGs and action games, studying what elements players want most and how to combine these elements to achieve our goal—to let all players who love wuxia culture and enjoy action performances find joy in it. After all, this is a game, and its purpose is to make most people feel it is fun, relaxing, and enjoyable, while providing extra adrenaline-pumping stimulation for those who seek challenges.
During the years of development, we communicated with a large number of ordinary players at various exhibitions and demo events, from Beijing to Shanghai in China, and from Los Angeles in the US to São Paulo in Brazil... We understood players' needs and strove to do well even in the smallest details:
For example, our audio settings include a "Sword Clash Tone" adjustment option, allowing players to customize their experience during blade locking; our PS5 version has three different key layout options (the PC version allows more flexible custom settings); additionally, we have adapted to mainstream screen aspect ratios, including 16:9 monitors and TVs, 16:10 laptops, handhelds, and ultra-wide screens exceeding 3:1.
But development is not always so rational; those emotional and crazy elements may have forged the most "delicious" parts of the game. Several of our important battles were completed by young colleagues born after 2000; all our characters and most scene settings were drawn entirely by Michael; not to mention the "lawless" A-Bo—he single-handedly completed over 10 hours of music material. Apart from some special instruments and vocals, he did all the work, including composition, performance, mixing, and also guided the completion of in-game playback control, volume control, etc.
After years of development, I feel that "technology" and "experience" are basic topics that no longer need discussion. What concerns me most is everyone's "mental state," whether there is a certain kind of "madness" and "obsession" hidden beyond technology and experience—as we made the wuxia game, we ourselves seemed to become the kind of characters found in wuxia stories.
Over these years, one sentence I said to the team quite often was, "Today I am going to announce a suffocating decision," which often meant tearing down, reconstructing, or even completely abandoning things that everyone had finished according to plan but were already well-crafted. It also meant significant rework or directly discarding content containing a large amount of work. Thanks to the team's support and understanding, we did it! We have poured all our thoughts and creativity into this work.
The existence of Phantom Blade Zero is to make you feel powerful and cool. No matter what enemy appears before you, you will ultimately defeat them. This feeling is not achieved through simple "telling," but is embodied through every slash you make, every parry, every dodge, and those dazzlingly violent aesthetic executions; the strength of enemies serves to highlight your own power, and even the seemingly dark, slightly tragic backstory—the sixty-six-day life countdown—is designed to extend this strength from the external to the internal.
Now, we sincerely invite you to experience Phantom Blade Zero. On one hand, it stems from the indie game I created amidst hardship and confusion during my student years; but it also凝聚ates Everythinggj we could pour into it within our capabilities.
This is a work of massive scale crafted with a burning heart. It is a gift from a small group of people who love games (who happen to be developers) to all who love games.
See you in the "Phantom Realm" Jianghu!
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Received three messages synchronized by colleagues before release:
1. We prepared a day-one patch before launch, approximately 5GB in size, which can greatly improve ray tracing and path tracing performance, as well as fix some bugs. If you completed the pre-download previously, you can update the patch further before starting the game. If you did not pre-download, the direct download will be the latest version.
2. We spent a lot of time improving rasterized artistic presentation, so that even with ray tracing turned off, the artistic design style of the scenes can still be perfectly conveyed. The experience on mid-to-low-end machines and even handhelds has undergone extensive testing and is worth trying.
3. We found that Nvidia's latest 621.01 driver has some unstable performance issues. After testing, the 617.42 driver is currently the most ideal version adapted for Phantom Blade Zero. If you have already updated to a version later than 617.42, you can roll back the driver to 617.42, choose clean installation, and wait for Nvidia's next driver update (we believe they will release it soon).
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