PS5’s Incredibly Promising Phantom Blade Zero Sounds Absolutely Brutal on Its Hardest Difficulty

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The challenging bosses in the upcoming PS5 game, Phantom Blade Zero, are designed to feel like opponents in a fighting game – requiring quick reactions instead of memorizing and mastering predictable attack patterns.

In an interview with PC Gamer (as reported by GamesRadar), game director Qiwei Liang discussed the boss Huangxing. He explained that on the normal difficulty setting, Huangxing fights similarly to bosses in Souls-like games – he has predictable attack patterns, and players can learn them by fighting him repeatedly.

On the hardest difficulty, called Hellwalker, the enemy Huangxing gets a smarter AI that learns and adapts during the fight. Instead of repeating the same attacks, it changes its strategy based on what’s happening. There’s even a “lucky draw” system where the success of its previous attack influences what it does next – successful attacks lead to continued combos, while missed attacks prompt a change in tactics. Liang, the developer, explained this system was inspired by fighting games and is now a core part of Huangxing’s AI.

The developers of Phantom Blade Zero, S-GAME, want to make it clear that while the game will be challenging, it’s not trying to be like the Souls series. It will offer four difficulty levels, with ‘Hellwalker’ being the hardest. Boss fights will be tough, usually with two stages, but they’re designed to be beatable. A helpful feature is that if you reach the second phase of a boss, you’ll start back there if you fail, rather than at the beginning.

We expect to learn when Phantom Blade Zero will be released before the end of the year. An announcement could come during this week’s rumored State of Play livestream, or at The Game Awards in December.

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2025-09-21 23:36