Summary

• Phantom Blade Zero is very keen for everyone to know it's not a soulslike.
• However, it does admit to being inspired by Dark Souls.
• Hopefully, this means the team cares about originality and creativity, not just copying successful formulas.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Phantom Blade Zero wants you to know that it's not a soulslike game. Like, it really wants you to know that. When my colleague Eric Switzer checked the game out at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Summer Game Fest, that was their opening line. Not in response to any question. Just "Hello, nice to meet you, take a seat, grab some water, we are not a soulslike". These last five words are repeated verbatim on its invitation to a Gamescom demo, and developer S-Game has 16🏅8澳洲幸运5开奖网:used similar phrasing in public before. So what is Phantom Blade Zero, and why does it insist it's not a soulslike?

The answer is not something Phantom Blade Zero's team will likely want to hear, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:but essentially, it's a soulslite. It's other stuff too! But there's some 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dark Souls in there. It's definitely more 'lite' than 'like', but you probably didn't notice that one letter change in my sentence and for a lot of players they're just different versions of the same thing, so the insistence that it's not a soulslike feels a little odd.

Phantom Blade Zero Has Three Main Influences

In the Gamescom email, three other games are mentioned: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alan Wake, which are cited as narrative influences, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Devil May Cry, which is part of a trio of 'lites' the game considers itself. In Phantom Blade Zero's own words it is part "Devil May Cry Lite", part "Resident Evil Lite", and (you can probably guess this last one), part "Souls Lite". It's Schrodinger's Dark Souls.

I do understand what S-Game is saying here. It divides the game into three distinct categories. Narratively, it's a Resident Evil Lite, also drawing influences from Alan Wake, which suggests a creepy and mysterious aura in some heavily characterised settings. The level design portion is where it becomes a Souls Lite, with "multi-layered maps, multiple approach paths, and hidden nooks and crevices" (which is itself styled on Metroidvanias anyway). But the combat is a Devil May Cry Lite, so much faster and more cinematic than a soulslike would be, with a focus on combos, speed, and flair, rather than perfectly timed dodges and learning patterns over and over again through trial and error.

Personally, those ingredients sound excellent to me. The intricate labyrinths are the most impressive parts of most soulslikes, while I vastly prefer the combat found in Devil May Cry - and, not mentioned but a clear close relation to DmC, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Bayonetta. And I love me s♔ome Resident Evil, and while the plot themselves can unravel towards the end, the foreboding atmosphere is one of the chief reasons the series became so legendary in the🐲 world of horror.

Phantom Blade Zero Wants New Ideas, Not Old Ones

It's understandable that S-Game wants players to know that the raw gameplay side is closer to Devil May Cry than Dark Souls. They attract different audiences, and despite the popularity of Elden Ring, there's typically more mass appeal in frenetic combat than there is in the agonising considerations one must make in a Souls game. It's also important not just to get fans of DmC gameplay through the door, but to stop Souls fans being disappointed when it turns out Phantom Blade Zero isn't aimed at them. But some of the language used is interesting.

S-Game specifically states "we are not making another soulslike game". S-Game has previously made roguelike Mad Crown and ARPG Phantom Blade: Executioners, so "another" does not refer to its own back catalogue. Instead, it seems to be a subtle criticism of the current gaming market. And it's not wrong - there are a lot of soulslikes, and they vary greatly in quality. Phantom Blade Zero clearly does not want to be seen as part of this crowd, and that only has me more intrigued.

The common ploy for games is to compare themselves to other popular games - we see this in Phantom Blade Zero with references to Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, and Alan Wake. But here, Phantom Blade Zero also breaks away from that. Soulslikes are a popular genre and the fervent fanbase tends to be willing to try any and all of them out. Yet it clearly distances itself to be something differe⛎nt. That gives me hope this game thinks more creatively about what it wants to be, and sees a new trail to blaze rather than a trend to follow.

Ultimately, it’s the players who will decide exactly how much of a soulslike Phantom Blade Zero is when they eventually get their hands on it. But right now, S-Games protestations offer a glimmer of hope that it won't be. It will be something much more interesting.