By Austin Manchester Published Oct 8, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT Previews From its ‘kungfupunk’ combat to wild boss battles, here’s everything you need to know
Image: S-Game Sign in to your Polygon.com account Add Us Summary Generate a summary of this story Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap Action game fans have had no shortage of choice in 2026. Romeo Is a Dead Man spotlights blood-soaked hack-and-slash combat, Beast of Reincarnation offers Souls-adjacent parry-focused fighting, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword takes parrying to the extreme with a plethora of defensive options.
Phantom Blade Zero looks to carve out its own space among sword-slashing action games. It blends simple controls and intense parries with stylish wuxia animations to create one of the most anticipated non- GTA 6 games of the fall release calendar. I recently got to play around four hours of Phantom Blade Zero on Windows PC at a preview event hosted by developer S-Game in Beijing, China, and experienced the game’s unique take on melee action.
I played from the very beginning of the game until the end of its first chapter. Afterward, I was plopped into two separate boss fights, defeating one and losing against the other. Trading blows with Phantom Blade Zero ’s bosses was certainly the highlight of my time with S-Game’s ambitious martial arts game, though the moment-to-moment action in between those boss fights didn’t reach the same highs.
Image: S-Game I played as Soul, an assassin being hounded by members of The Order, a shadowy organization he used to work for. Maybe it was the jet lag after a 16.5-hour flight, but I didn’t pick up on that context in the preview; I learned Soul was a John Wick-style assassin on the run when director Soulframe Liang mentioned it during a roundtable interview following the gameplay session.
Soul gets mortally wounded fighting his childhood BFF Zuo Shang, and both dudes stab each other through the heart. Don’t worry, Soul doesn't die (yet) — a creepy little guy called the Flesh Sculptor hooks him up with a new heart, but it’ll only last 66 days. Zuo Shang also survives, and now Souls sets off on an action-packed adventure to presumably find and battle his old friend once and for all.
Nothing about the story really grabbed me in these opening hours, but, to be frank, the stories of action games like Black Myth: Wukong , Stellar Blade , and Beast of Reincarnation didn’t grab me much either, and I still put dozens of hours into those games. The real crux of Phantom Blade Zero ’s appeal is its combat, which, after the preview session, I look forward to experiencing in full.
Image: S-Game S-Game’s stated goal is to bring Chinese martial arts to life through Phantom Blade Zero ’s combat. Soulframe wanted to translate the cinema of wuxia films to action-packed gameplay and to “create a playable kung fu movie.” S-Game has recruited movie star and martial artist Donnie Yen to help bring its vision to life as a creative consultant, and he’s even playing and mo-caping a character in the game.
Yen leads a team of about 15-20 stunt performers and helps choreograph the action, which is full of the stuntmen performing lightning-fast choreography that sometimes involves wirework stunts, like in wuxia movies. Kenji Tanigaki — best known for directing The Furious , widely considered the…