There are only a couple weeks left until the dark kung-fu action RPG Phantom Blade Zero comes to PlayStation5 and PC. Scheduled to launch October 28, the game is developed and published by Beijing-based studio S-Game.
Contrary to previous series entries, Phantom Blade Zero is a high-budget 3D title with realistic graphics, following in the footsteps of other Chinese AAA hits like Black Myth: Wukong. However, according to its developers, the game still holds on to its indie roots despite its unquestionably ambitious scale.
In a recent interview with Korean media outlet Inven Global, Soulframe, the CEO of S-Game and creator of the Phantom Blade series, talked a bit more about the difficulties he faced transitioning from mobile development to creating an AAA console game.
Making a 3D triple-A game in Unreal Engine 5 is a first for S-Games, and development was difficult in pretty much every aspect, Soulframe explains. Presumably back when development started, there weren’t many domestic developers experienced in creating their own AAA 3D games, so S-Games had to build everything from scratch, with the help of other Chinese companies that mainly did outsourcing work for Western and Japanese studios.
“Everything was new, and we had to find solutions in new ways to realize what we wanted. We also recruited very young developers. We entrusted crucial tasks, like the final boss or the opening sequence, to people recruited straight out of school who had zero experience with a project of this scale,” Soulframe comments.
But while the shift to AAA development was definitely a big leap for the studio, its foundations and approach still lie in indie development, and Souframe believes that this “indie spirit” played a major role in making the Phantom Blade Zero come to life.
“Some people ask if Phantom Blade Zero is an indie game. Looking purely at scale, it’s hard to call it an indie game. It’s a project with a pretty large budget. However, in spirit, I consider it an indie game. That’s because we try to maintain a mindset of taking on new, extreme challenges and not being afraid to step outside established boundaries,” he said.
Originally, the world and lore of Phantom Blade started out as an indie effort with Rainblood: Town of Death, an RPGMaker title released in 2010. According to Soulframe, the IP, which he started while he was still a student, was refined and expanded over the next 20+ years, and the Phantom Blade Zero project is a result of that continuous effort.
Phantom Blade Zero releases on October 28 for PC (Steam/Epic Games Store) and PS5.
