Less than a week after the release of Phantom Blade Zero, player PVLW created the "Phantom Souls" mod, adding several Dark Souls-style rules to the game. After installation, regular enemies will respawn, characters will drop resources upon death, and boss fight phases will reset.
The original Phantom Blade Zero emphasizes parrying, dodging, and observing boss attacks, and features a bell to record progress, but S-Game has not positioned it as a Soulslike game. In the original version, regular enemies do not respawn after the player rests, and characters do not need to return to their death location to retrieve resources upon dying.
After installing the mod, regular enemies will reappear when the character dies or when the player rests at the bell. The first interaction with the bell will not trigger respawning; the player must actually choose to rest. Upon death, the character loses accumulated "Consciousness Dust," which can be retrieved by reaching the death location without dying again along the way. Enemies killed again will only provide 25% of the normal amount of resources to limit repetitive farming.
The mod also modifies boss battle rules. The original version allows players to retain progress made in a fight after death, such as continuing from phase two; with this mod, if a player dies in phase two, the next attempt will restart from phase one, and the game will also track the number of deaths.
Additionally, the community has created mods that increase enemy damage, adjust parrying and dodging mechanics, make basic attacks consume "Sha Qi," as well as content such as Boss Rush, alternative key bindings, and appearance modifications. These changes are all player-created and do not represent a change in S-Game's original design.