S-Game wants Phantom Blade Zero to feel like a kung fu film you hold in your hands, and a four-hour hands-on published by Polygon on October 8, 2026 suggests the studio is close. Polygon’s Austin Manchester played the game on Windows PC at a preview event S-Game hosted in Beijing, going from the very start to the end of the first chapter, then taking on two separate boss fights. The verdict, in the headline: it is now his most-anticipated action game.
You play as Soul, an assassin hunted by The Order, the shadowy organization he once worked for. Director Soulframe Liang described him as a John Wick-style killer on the run. The setup is grimly theatrical: Soul and his childhood friend Zuo Shang stab each other through the heart, and a creepy figure called the Flesh Sculptor gives Soul a new one that will only last 66 days. Zuo Shang survives too, which sets up the hunt. The preview admits the story did not grab it in these opening hours, but that is not why anyone is watching this game.
The draw is the combat. S-Game’s stated aim is to “create a playable kung fu movie,” and it brought in martial arts star Donnie Yen as a creative consultant. Yen also plays and performs motion capture for a character, and leads a team of about 15-20 stunt performers that choreographs the action, wirework included. Kenji Tanigaki, director of The Furious, works on that team as an action director. The result is an animation style that is deliberately extra: Soul whirls his sword before striking and spins into a ledge climb instead of simply pulling himself up.
The basic inputs are simple, essentially Square and Triangle, but the depth sits in the Sha-chi meter, a stamina gauge for Soul’s strongest combos. Switching weapons refills it, so you can burn through Sha-chi with one weapon, swap and keep the pressure on, a trick Polygon compares to transforming a trick weapon mid-combo in Bloodborne. Boss battles are the highlight, from a foe on a horse-drawn carriage to a pair of dancers working a lion head puppet. Regular enemies, by contrast, can feel paint-by-numbers and go down too quickly.
What else S-Game shared at the event:
- A full run should take about 35-40 hours for players experienced with action games.
- More than 30 weapons, plus 20 more Phantom Edges that work as special attacks; some also open new paths in a largely linear world with light Metroidvania elements.
- Three difficulty options (easy, medium, hard) that can be changed at any time, but dropping to easy cannot be undone.
- An unlockable 66 Days difficulty, where every death costs Soul one day until none are left.
- Checkpoints between boss phases, unlike a FromSoftware Soulslike.
Phantom Blade Zero is set for release on October 29, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. On the PlayStation Store the Standard Edition costs US$59.99 and the Digital Deluxe Edition US$69.99, with S-GAME Publishing listed as publisher.
