Short Answer
Phantom Blade Zero is made by S-GAME, a Chinese studio headquartered in Beijing that also serves as the game's publisher. The project is led by the studio's founder, Soulframe Liang (Liang Qiwei), who directs and produces the game and coined the "kungfupunk" label the team uses for its style. Around the core team in Beijing, S-GAME runs a motion capture and animation group in Shanghai, an art team in Hong Kong, and a global publishing operation in Los Angeles.
If you have seen comparisons to Dark Souls, Devil May Cry, or Black Myth: Wukong, it helps to know who is actually building this: a studio that has been making dark wuxia action games for more than a decade, first as indie PC titles and later as mobile games, with Phantom Blade Zero as its first full-scale console and PC production.
S-GAME: The Studio Behind the Game
S-GAME was founded by Soulframe Liang and grew out of his Rainblood indie projects into a full studio organized around several specialized teams. The main development team works in Beijing. Motion capture and animation are handled by a team in Shanghai, the art team operates from Hong Kong, and a publishing team in Los Angeles handles the studio's international outreach.
The studio's relationship with publishers is worth understanding correctly. In 2021, Tencent proposed and formalized a partnership that provided financial backing and support while S-GAME pursued its goal of building large-scale PC and console games. The studio used that stability to commit fully to Phantom Blade Zero, suspending other new projects — including a space-themed game called Stellar Saga that had been planned alongside it. Development at full scale started in 2022, on Unreal Engine 5.
Soulframe Liang: Director, Producer, and the Kungfupunk Label
Soulframe Liang is the public face of Phantom Blade Zero: founder, director, and producer in one person. He writes and speaks about the game's identity more than most studio heads, and several of his positions matter for players deciding whether to care about this game.
He is the one who coined "kungfupunk" — known in Chinese contexts as 武侠朋克 — to describe the game's blend of martial arts, dark fantasy, and retro-futuristic machinery. Asked to place the game in a genre, he has said it broadly falls under action RPGs but suggested it "maybe could create a new identity that is Wuxia Action Games." He has also directly pushed back on both easy labels, telling GamesRadar the game is "neither a Soulslike game nor a traditional action game" — pointing instead to its selectable difficulty tiers and combo-forward combat.
His stated priorities are unusual for a studio head. In a PC Gamer interview he put it this way: "Many people make games for money, but we make money for games." He has also emphasized that the team rejects generative AI in production and that every piece of content is hand-crafted by artists — a stance S-GAME has repeated as the game neared completion.
The Games S-GAME Made Before Phantom Blade Zero
S-GAME's back catalogue matters because Phantom Blade Zero deliberately grows out of it. The franchise was originally called Rainblood and was later renamed Phantom Blade, and it spans three eras:
- Rainblood: Town of Death — the original indie wuxia RPG that started the series, a small, dark, dialogue-driven game that Liang created before the studio formally scaled up. It was released as a low-priced indie title and built the series' reputation for grim storytelling.
- Rainblood 2: City of Flame and Rainblood Chronicles: Mirage — the follow-up indie entries that expanded the Rainblood storyline and its cast.
- Phantom Blade 1, 2, and 3 — the mobile era. These side-scrolling kungfu action games carried the franchise to a large mobile audience and refined the series' signature blade combat in 2D.
- Phantom Blade: Executioners — the international cross-platform release of Phantom Blade 3: a free-to-play side-scrolling action RPG that launched in November 2023 on PlayStation, PC, and mobile, and the studio's most recent game before Phantom Blade Zero.
That history is why Phantom Blade Zero is numbered "Zero": the studio announced the project back in 2016 as a remake of the Rainblood series with an extended plot, and the Chinese title 影之刃零 keeps the lineage explicit even as the game tells its own story.
How Phantom Blade Zero Connects to Those Games
Soulframe Liang has described Phantom Blade Zero as "the spiritual rebirth of the original Rainblood" and a return to the story foundations of the first two Rainblood games. At the same time, he has been equally clear that it follows a new story with new character relationships and motivations, and that it requires no knowledge of the earlier titles — the game contains its full story within itself.
For practical purposes, that means two things. First, you do not need to play anything older to follow Soul's 66-day hunt, which our Rainblood newcomer's guide breaks down in detail. Second, the connections are there if you want them: the bleak tone, the rain-soaked towns, and specific callbacks like Pangzhen, the town of death from the original game. If you plan to explore the older titles, our play-order guide covers where to start, and our Pangzhen story explainer covers the original game's most direct connection to the new one. When you are ready to look forward instead of back, our world overview is the natural next step.
From 2017 Concept to October 2026 Launch
The road to release was long, and mostly matches the studio's own retelling. Liang shared early concepts in 2017, including character art shown at ChinaJoy, and decided around that time to move the series from 2D graphics to full 3D. In 2018 the project was put on hold; in 2021 it was revived, the Tencent partnership landed, and the studio pointed its plans at Unreal Engine 5. Full-scale development began in 2022.
The world saw the game on 24 May 2023, when its trailer closed the PlayStation Showcase. The attention exceeded what a smaller game needed, and S-GAME expanded its scope. The release date was announced at The Game Awards in December 2025 — first set for 9 September 2026, then moved to 29 October 2026 to give the team more polishing time. Along the way, the game crossed one million wishlists in 15 days on its way past three million, won Most Anticipated Game honors at the UCG Game Awards 2024 and Ultra Game Awards 2025, and drew Donnie Yen into the project as creative consultant and the character Mó Yuan — our Mó Yuan profile covers that collaboration.
FAQ
- Who made Phantom Blade Zero? S-GAME, a Beijing-based Chinese studio, develops and publishes it; founder Soulframe Liang directs and produces.
- Who is Soulframe Liang? Liang Qiwei, S-GAME's founder and the creator of the Rainblood and Phantom Blade series; he coined "kungfupunk" and leads the studio.
- What did S-GAME make before? The Rainblood indie RPGs (Town of Death, City of Flame, Mirage), the Phantom Blade 1-3 mobile games, and Phantom Blade: Executioners — the global release of Phantom Blade 3.
- Do I need to play the older games first? No — Phantom Blade Zero is a new story, though it is a deliberate return to the series' roots; see our newcomer's guide.
- Is S-GAME owned by Tencent? No ownership claim has been announced. Tencent entered a partnership in 2021 that provided financial backing while S-GAME kept developing its own projects.