Beating kung fu action RPG Phantom Blade Zero is "pretty achievable," says combat director, but only if you're willing to do so "in a mediocre, not-as-beautiful way"

Upcoming action game Phantom Blade Zero might look similar to the many challenging soulslikes out there, but not only do its devs insist that their upcoming release isn't a soulslike itself, it's also apparently "pretty achievable" to beat it, too – well, with a catch.

Phantom Blade Zero creator Soulframe Liang, the CEO of developer S-Game, previously explained that his upcoming title is "neither a Soulslike game nor a traditional action game," and that instead, "maybe it could create a new identity that is Wuxia Action Games?" This is an idea that's been brought back by combat director Qianli Ma in an interview with PC Gamer in its latest magazine issue, 414, who notes that "the whole concept is the wuxia, kung fu style," which makes players "want to dance."

In the interview, Ma notes that focusing on the Chinese martial art "means to a certain degree giving up the accuracy of input to bring out the fast-paced combat." This concept also has an impact on the difficulty, seemingly depending on how much players choose to lean into the "dance" the combat director mentions.

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"If you want to beat it in a mediocre, not-as-beautiful way, it's pretty achievable," Ma continues. "But if you want to do it in a very beautiful manner, that's the difficult aspect."

It'll be interesting to see exactly what this looks like in execution – action games almost always include cheesy ways to dispatch tough foes and bosses that are the exact opposite of cinematic. Other than that, though, figuring out how to match a game's rhythm and flow generally makes things easier, so it's interesting to hear that that may not be the case here.

Phantom Blade Zero still doesn't have a release date, but it was previously announced that it'd be confirmed at some point before the end of the year.

"Nowadays there are too many Souls games," says Phantom Blade Zero director, and you probably won't know the difference in this "kung fu action game" until you play it.