The official X account of Phantom Blade Zero has posted a brief video interview with S-GAME founder and creative director Soulframe Liang, in which the developer seemed to outline an Honor system not unlike the one in Rockstar's masterpiece, Red Dead Redemption 2. In that game, most player actions, such as helping strangers or killing innocents, affected a full-fledged morality mechanic that influenced NPC behavior, shop prices, loot quality, and even the story's ending.
Fans understandably started to get excited about this. Very few games since RDR 2 have attempted something like that. However, Phantom Blade Zero's X account quickly clarified that there is no such system in the game. On the other hand, completing side quests in a certain manner can indeed influence the main story.
Here's the full segment from Liang's interview:
Players who have played many action roleplaying games or roleplaying games will know all about main quests and side quests. There's always a main questline. That usually means facing your own conflicts, or dealing with issues at the center of your own story. That is the main story. But in Phantom Blade Zero's side quests, you will inevitably encounter strangers brought together by chance. These people have their own stories, and you are just a passerby in theirs. That is to say, in the process of helping others, it's a bit like the butterfly effect. Flapping a wing.
In your process of acting with honor, you might actually influence your own main quest and your own story of love and vengeance. Under this influence, you will discover that, as long as you act according to your code of honor, as long as you do the right things, you will find that it will have a bigger, more macroscopic impact. I think this is perhaps a very Zen interpretation. Who you are depends on everything that you do, and as long as you stick to a core principle across all your actions, these seemingly unrelated events will combine, shaping who you are and altering the course of your future.
Phantom Blade Zero is easily among 2026's most anticipated games. Its excellent gameplay, already tested at various preview events, finely treads the line between Soulslike and more traditional action-RPG elements. The storyline follows elite assassin Soul as he serves an elusive and powerful organization known as The Order. At the beginning of the game, he is framed for the murder of the Order's patriarch and is seriously wounded during the subsequent manhunt. However, he survives and is given 66 days to live thanks to a temporary cure from a mystic healer. With time running out, he sets out to unravel the conspiracy that has condemned him.
Last week, Soulframe Liang revealed that the game (currently scheduled to launch on September 9 for PC and PlayStation 5) is in the final stretch of development. He also appeared to pull support for NVIDIA's DLSS 5 technology, though this has not yet been confirmed.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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