Phantom Blade Zero director Qiwei Liang told PC Gamer that the project aims to distance itself from traditional Soulslikes and adopt a distinct martial-arts identity. That matters because trailers point to faster, acrobatic combat rather than the slow, weighty movement Soulslike fans expect. The game’s real verdict will come only when people play it.
Liang has previously insisted that Phantom Blade Zero is “neither a Soulslike game nor a traditional action game,” and recent footage leans into acrobatic movement over heavy, slow strikes. Trailers show a focus on dodging, aerial maneuvers, and rapid combos rather than fixed, stamina-based trades. “People will not understand exactly what it is until they actually play it. But this is how the gaming industry evolves – many current genres are some sort of mixture,” Liang said.
His quote keeps going: “Back in the ’60s and ’70s, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, all these kung fu masters created a new genre in kung fu movies. We don’t call them action movies. We call them kung fu, right? It incorporated some of Hollywood, Chinese kung fu culture, and Chinese traditional opera to make something new.
“So for us, our idea is to create a new subgenre [within] the RPG or action game: a kung fu action game.” That claim will sit uneasily with defenders of titles like Sifu or the long-running Shenmue series, but Liang’s point is that blending mechanics could produce a recognisably different feel. The game has no release date yet and remains hard to place from trailers alone.
