On October 22, S-GAME released the launch trailer for Phantom Blade Zero. With the digital release seven days away, the trailer did not end on a story beat. It ended on a line of text: a PS5 physical edition is coming in 2027. Insider Gaming records the wording as "PS5 Physical Edition Coming in 2027," while Push Square describes it as a stinger at the end of the trailer — one sentence, with no accompanying press release and no price list.
For players who have been waiting for a disc, that single line carries weight. Barely two weeks earlier, an overseas retailer was emailing customers to say the game would be digital only. But a one-line announcement confirms very little: what the three versions contain, when in 2027 they arrive, and how a 134GB game fits on a disc are all still open.
What the announcement actually says
Four things are confirmed.
First, the platform is PS5, not PC. The wording is "PS5 Physical Edition," and nothing has been said about a physical release on Steam or Epic.
Second, there are three versions: Standard, Deluxe and Ultimate. Chinese-language coverage relaying S-GAME's statement uses the same three tiers for PS5 physical editions in 2027 — no fourth SKU appears in either language.
Third, the window is 2027, with no quarter and no month. Insider Gaming writes that it could be at the beginning of the year or a year from now; measured from its October 22 publication date, that spans early 2027 through late 2027.
Fourth, the Ultimate Edition includes a collectible steel case. That is the only version for which any extra physical component has been named.
That is the full extent of it. S-GAME has not published a price for any version, has not opened pre-orders, and has not said whether the physical releases will carry the virtual extras bundled with the digital Deluxe Edition.
The three editions: what is known and what is not
Sorted by version, the blanks outnumber the entries.
| Edition | Confirmed | Still unannounced |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Exists, PS5 physical | Whether a disc is included, contents, price |
| Deluxe | Exists, PS5 physical | Whether it matches the digital Deluxe extras, contents, price |
| Ultimate | Exists, includes a collectible steel case | Everything beyond the case, whether the case holds a disc or a code, price |
"Standard edition includes a disc" feels like a question that should not need asking, but strictly speaking the announcement supplied edition names and nothing itemised. The Ultimate Edition deserves the biggest question mark: a steel case can be a disc holder or a box for keepsakes, and the announcement does not say which.
For reference, the digital side is well documented. The Standard Edition is $59.99 in the US and £54.99 in the UK, and the digital Deluxe Edition adds $10 or £10 in those regions. On Steam in China the Standard Edition is ¥268 and the Deluxe Edition ¥328. The Deluxe extras are two exclusive outfits, Wulin Legend and Blood-Steel Form, plus an in-game artbook and in-game soundtrack. Whether that package carries over to a boxed Deluxe Edition has not been stated.
When the details do arrive, two things are worth checking directly: the disc count and capacity printed on the box, and whether the store page states that an additional download is required. Those two decide which kind of physical edition this turns out to be.
134GB against one disc: the real technical problem
The PS5 download size for Phantom Blade Zero is 134.857GB. The figure comes from the datamining account PlayStation Game Size, which read the entry from PSN backend data; it was relayed widely in mid-October and is recorded on this site in our preload and file size breakdown. Push Square, covering the physical edition, uses the looser phrasing that the game takes up "as much as 134GB." Either figure is more data than a standard Blu-ray disc holds. Note also that 134.857GB is the PS5 figure; S-GAME has still not announced a PC download size.
The question gets discussed so much because the word physical is already splitting in the industry. An August report on 17173, sourced to IT之家, noted that Sony had said it may keep selling physical boxes even if discs disappear, with a download code inside instead. The box survives, the disc does not — which is exactly what worries disc buyers. S-GAME used the phrase Physical Edition and did not say whether the box holds a disc or a code.
Push Square draws two possibilities from that: either the game ships on two discs, or the box contains one disc and requires an additional download. Both change what a physical copy actually is. Two discs mean higher manufacturing cost and the inconvenience of swapping them; a disc plus a download means the box still needs a network connection after it is opened.
The graphic at the end of the trailer shows a single disc. Push Square is careful to note that this proves nothing either way — the disc count in an illustration is not a specification.
The stakes are simple. Many disc buyers want three things: put the disc in and play, no dependency on a connection, and the ability to resell. If the final product turns out to be a disc plus a download, the third survives and the first two are weakened.
How "digital only" turned into "see you in 2027"
The announcement landed as a surprise because two weeks earlier the signal pointed the other way.
On August 17, a report on 17173 relaying IT之家 said the overseas retailer Play-Asia had told a customer that it was taking pre-orders for a physical version with a game disc inside the box. The same report noted that S-GAME had not officially confirmed a disc release at that point, and the listing was briefly live.
In early October the situation reversed: Play-Asia emailed customers who had ordered, saying its earlier information had been wrong, that the game would be released digitally only, that orders had been cancelled automatically and that payments would be returned to the original method. Both Ali213 and ZOL covered the emails on October 7.
The qualifier both outlets attached matters. The information came from correspondence between players and retailer support, not from S-GAME or its publisher, and whether a physical edition might still appear was described as having no authoritative answer. In other words, the "officially digital only" line that circulated widely at the time was never official.
The October 22 trailer delivered the official answer, and it pointed the opposite way. Push Square put it bluntly, noting that the game had been written off by some PlayStation fans precisely because no physical version existed. A creator post on Tencent News, credited to the account 黑色玫瑰, recorded reactions from overseas community threads after the announcement, where variations of "I will buy it on disc no matter what" kept appearing.
Buy digital now, or wait for the disc
Start with the clock. The digital version unlocks at 10:00 Beijing time on October 29, with preloads opening at 10:00 on October 27. Skip the digital release and the launch-day conversation, streams and story breakdowns all have to be dodged.
Pre-orders are still open, and the bonuses are an accessory called the Treasure Basin, which raises Consciousness Dust drop rate by 10 percent, and an outfit called Legacy. Bonuses of that kind usually apply only around launch, so anyone buying the 2027 disc will most likely miss them.
The cost of waiting is time: 2027, with no indication of when in the year. Measured from October 29, that is at minimum a couple of months and potentially more than a year, and staying clear of spoilers across that stretch is not trivial.
What the disc offers is an asset that can be resold, a collectible that sits on a shelf, and the convenience of starting the game without a connection once installed. A PS5 disc game still needs the disc in the drive to run after installation, and that does not change between editions.
One product is easy to confuse with this announcement. The collector box sold in mainland China bundles a figure and themed collectibles with a WeGame Digital Deluxe code. It contains no disc, and the code cannot be redeemed on PS5, so it is a different product from the PS5 physical edition announced this week. The box contents and sales history are covered in our physical edition and collector box overview.
For PC players the answer is simpler: there is no PC physical release, and none has been announced. Steam and Epic both list digital versions only.
Three kinds of "physical": one table to keep them apart
| Product | What is inside | Can you play the game with it | On sale now |
|---|---|---|---|
| PS5 digital edition | A digital licence on PlayStation Store | Yes, unlocks October 29 | Yes, pre-orders open |
| PS5 physical edition (2027) | Officially a Physical Edition; disc or code inside not stated | Yes | No, no pre-orders and no price |
| Mainland collector box | A figure, themed collectibles and a WeGame Digital Deluxe code | Only through WeGame on PC | Sold in two batches, see our write-up |
Read the table in order. The third column answers the immediate question: only the digital edition gets you the game this month. The second column answers the one after it: the collector box carries a PC code, so a PS5 owner who buys it ends up with a figure and no game for their console.
The table blocks the two most common mistakes: treating the collector box as the PS5 disc release, and treating the 2027 physical edition as something that can be ordered today.
Until the details land, the confirmed core is one sentence long: a PS5 disc is coming, and it is coming in 2027.