Phantom Blade Zero Story Spans 20-30 Hours, Developed On A $55M Budget

The main story length and developmental budget for S-GAME’s upcoming action role-playing game, Phantom Blade Zero, have been revealed.

During an interview with a Chinese content creator, Phantom Blade Zero developer S-GAME was asked regarding the game’s length and whether it is linear in design. In response, the studio shared that it is a wide linear game with many explorative and side paths.  It further added that the main story in Phantom Blade Zero is around 20-30 hours, with multiple endings based on the player’s progress. According to the developer, there’s plenty of exploration, challenges, and collection content, with significant depth in the combat system.

S-GAME was also asked to share how much it has invested in Phantom Blade Zero thus far. In response, the developer stated that it has spent 200 million Chinese Yuan on development so far. Completing the game may require an additional 200 million Chinese Yuan, even without significantly expanding its scale. This roughly translates to a total budget of 55 million US Dollars. It was also revealed during the interview that the studio received investment from Tencent for the game’s development. It also received support from Sony, both in terms of development and marketing.

Furthermore, the developer also shared that Phantom Blade Zero draws inspiration from games like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Sifu and Bloodborne. A former art director at FromSoftware, who played a role in shaping the art styles of the original Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, is also working on the project. It was also shared that some of the development team’s favorite titles are Bloodborne, Ninja Gaiden 2 and Vagrant story.  Other sources of inspiration include Gu Long’s Wuxia novels, anime and manga series like Berserk, Vagabond and Blade of the Immortal, and 80s/90s era Kung-Fu action movies.

Previously, we shared a first look at the controller layout in Phantom Blade Zero. Read about it here.