Phantom Blade Zero Reviews Land at 88 on Metacritic — the Combat Delivers, the Story Divides
Phantom Blade Zero's reviews land at 88 on Metacritic and 91 on OpenCritic ahead of its October 29 launch, with combat praised and the story dividing critics.
Phantom Blade Zero's review embargo lifted on October 26, three days before launch, and the verdict is about as strong as the wishlist numbers promised. At the time of writing this, S-GAME's wuxia action RPG sits at 89 on Metacritic for PC and 88 for PlayStation 5, and 91 on OpenCritic — early aggregates that will drift as more reviews land, but the shape of the consensus is already clear.
The top end is enthusiastic. PCGamesN awarded a perfect score, calling it a new gold standard for the action RPG, and TheGamer also went top marks, floating it as a Game of the Year contender. IGN gave it 9/10, saying the combat still felt fresh after roughly 50 hours, with Push Square, GamesRadar+, and GAMINGbible landing on 9s as well. GameSpot and Video Games Chronicle came in at 8/10 and 4/5.
What nobody argues about is the fighting. Across the reviews, the deflect-and-parry combat, the weapon variety — more than 30 primary weapons — and the boss encounters are the reason for the scores. GameSpot's split sums it up: the combat is so good you stop caring that the story makes no sense.
And the story is where the consensus frays. Critics repeatedly ding conventional storytelling, underdeveloped characters, invisible walls, and performance dips on both platforms. The spread tells that story on its own: Eurogamer gave it 3/5 while two other outlets went perfect, and both played the same game.
That split is worth keeping in mind given where this game started. When we covered this (see story here) only a few days ago, it was a wishlist story — more than 3 million wishlists, more than half from outside China, with Donnie Yen aboard as creative consultant.
Now it's a verdict story, and the verdict is: one of the year's best-playing action games, carrying a story that won't convert everyone.
Phantom Blade Zero launches October 29 on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, unlocking the evening of October 28 in the US. No Xbox version has been announced.