One of the major surprises at Sony’s recent PlayStation Showcase was the reveal of S-Game’s Phantom Blade Zero. While we did see what looked liked gameplay, the studio has now relayed a lot more info about it such as the Phantom Blade Zero game length, whether what we saw was in-game and more.

In a Q&A conducted on the game’s Discord, the studio answered a few important questions. For one, we now know that the Phantom Blade Zero game length will take gamers up to 30-40 hours to complete the main story. There’s also multiplayer confirmed as well.

(Note: For clarity, we have edited the Q&A for grammar and spelling).

Question 1: Is there an assigned game price?
Not yet, we’ll discuss this issue with our partners when most part of the game is done.

Question 2: Explain whether if the combat we saw was actual combat and how does the combat works on the different controllers (Phone, PC, Console)
Yes, all combat scenes are captured in-engine, they are real. But we set a more “cinematic” camera to capture the trailer footage, some angles are specially set.
The actual game will have a stable camera with larger view scope. The combat will look much clearer, but less impactful as it is in the trailer(or it’ll be too dizzying).
“Combo Chain” is a system we have been developed for 10 years, in mobile games for most of the time, but we found it work on all kinds of controllers just fine. Players will edit their skill orders in 2 chains, and simply press the 2 bottoms to release super complex and fast combos. This makes everyone’s gameplay look like a professional twitcher of DMC or Ninja Gaiden. But there are still depth in how to organize the skill order, and other timing related skills(parry, dodge, etc).

Question 3: How long is the game?
Main story alone is about 30~40h, and there are tons of side quests to play with.
Upon completing the story mode, players are presented with a plethora of endgame content that includes various multiplayer dungeons, boss rushes, rogue-like abysses, and more.

Question 4: How we define the Phantom Blade Zero? Will it be like Ninja Gaiden / DMC or like Sekiro?
Kind of mix, the adventure map has multiple paths forward, and combat is similar to Ninja Gaiden. You can understand it as a traditional hack & slash with semi-open world map instead of a linear map.

Question 5: About the release time? and how long has the game been in development?
Release time is a question we can’t answer yet.
Early concept of the game has been written & designed since 2017, but limited to 2~3 core members. The actual development starts in early 2022.

Question 6: Will it be time exclusive or release at the same time on other platforms?
For now we don’t have any exclusivity on any platform.

Question 7: Is the game open world?
Not that kind of vast open world you need a horse to ride from point A to point B. But it does have multiple paths and some open world elements.

Question 8: I was curious if you recommend playing the mobile games before playing the worldwide release or would that spoil the story?
The mobile game Phantom Blade: Executioners is the prequel of Phantom Blade Zero, playing it will give you some of the background of characters and the world. No spoiler for sure.
PBEX tells a story when Soul is relatively younger. He was fighting alongside other executioners of The Order (Organization in PBEX), such as Mu Xiaokui and Zuo Shang, and maybe others who are still his friends. But when it comes to PB Zero, you’ll see something really tragic happening. Soul becomes the traitor for some reason, heavily wounded, and all the former friends are now enemies.
I think it’s kind of like watching a prequel movie of John Wick, if there was one. In that case you may see a younger John Wick with some cool friends. And then you begin to watch the actual John Wick series, and see how he has to kill them all.

If the studio answers more questions about the game, we’ll be sure to report on it.

Phantom Blade Zero has no release date but we do know that it’s a PS5 console exclusive that’s also set for release on PC.