Phantom Blade Zero: How Donnie Yen is Pushing Action Games to New Heights

For Phantom Blade Zero, the squad astatine developer S-Game is intelligibly pulling retired each the stops successful bid to bring its bold and breathtaking imaginativeness for kungfupunk to life. By drafting successful enactment movie megastar and martial arts maestro Donnie Yen to service arsenic co-producer connected its wuxia-inspired enactment RPG, the Chinese developer is ensuring that each kick, punch, and scintillating sword-slice is delivered with the utmost authenticity and heart-stopping intensity.

In 2025, I was fortunate capable to beryllium invited implicit to S-Game’s Shanghai workplace to get an penetration into its groundbreaking attack to kung fu question capture, and to talk with some originative manager Soulframe Liang and Donnie Yen himself. It was genuinely spectacular to spot Donnie’s squad successful action, pulling disconnected a breathtaking bid of dazzling wirework stunts and daring martial arts moves, but it wasn’t until I saw a stunt performer juggling a babe connected the leaf of his sword earlier launching it into the aerial that I knew I was witnessing thing genuinely brainsick and wholly creative.

As it turns out, Donnie Yen wasn’t conscionable playing a captious relation successful the instauration of Phantom Blade Zero, helium was helping to usher successful an breathtaking caller mode of mo-capping enactment successful games. Watch the video supra for IGN's exclusive look down the scenes astatine the making of this martial arts-inspired enactment epic.

Not yet caught up connected Phantom Blade Zero? Be definite to cheque retired our archetypal hands-on preview here.

Tristan Ogilvie is simply a elder video exertion astatine IGN's Sydney office. He travelled to Shanghai arsenic a impermanent of S-Game. Follow him connected Blue Sky astatine @tristanogilvie.bsky.social