Phantom Blade Zero lastly exhibits off its interconnected sport world, with exploration ‘guided by 8 genuine hand-painted Chinese language ink wash maps’

In a PlayStation State of Play video at this time, Phantom Blade Zero developer S-Recreation has lastly proven off glimpses of a sport world it is largely stored secret up thus far, with eight particular person maps that “seamlessly join right into a single world.”

In my demos of the sport during the last 12 months and a half, S-Recreation has careworn that the areas I acquired to play and the bosses I fought had been all non-compulsory diversions from the principle story—spectacular, contemplating their scope. This State of Play has lastly pulled again the curtain on a number of the sport’s main characters and areas and proven in additional concrete phrases what distinguishes Phantom Blade Zero from linear motion video games and open world ones.

“Your journey takes you to intricate however surreal landscapes,” explains S-Recreation founder Soulframe Liang. “Villages, valleys, lakes, and shadowed territories, together with a valley overrun by ruthless bandits, an deserted warehouse stuffed with hanging puppets the place a darkish ritual appears to be happening, a steam-powered iron tower constructed for some form of darkish experiment, and an unlimited lake, which Soul should navigate aboard a peculiar high-speed vessel.”

We do not get to see quite a lot of seconds of every of these areas, however the narration nonetheless affords a way of a number of the large chunks the sport’s world will likely be divided into. Extra fascinating to me, although, is how Phantom Blade Zero is dealing with maps: I like that it is not providing you with all the small print like so many open world video games, whereas nonetheless providing a bit extra help than a mapless soulslike:

“Your journey is guided by eight genuine, hand-painted Chinese language ink wash maps. In complicated areas they provide solely a tough sense of route, leaving you to discover and uncover hidden secrets and techniques. These maps seamlessly join right into a single world, the place bells allow quick journey between found areas.”

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Soulframe says Phantom Blade Zero “isn’t an open world sport, neither is it a linear journey from starting to finish.”

Within the State of Play there are just a few fast examples of weapons getting used to smash by obstacles, that means there’s a minimum of a light-weight little bit of metroidvania-style progress gating that may encourage returning to areas to open new paths or discover secrets and techniques. We’ll see how intensive that exploration proves to be, however I hope Phantom Blade Zero manages to be one of many few motion RPGs to get inside spitting distance of Darkish Souls’ still-unbeaten world.

And simply in case you missed it final week: Hong Kong motion star Donnie Yen has been concerned in Phantom Blade Zero’s improvement since 2023.