Phantom Blade Zero studio S-Game is distancing itself from an alleged and anonymous developer who claims that “nobody needs” Xbox or its platform. The studio says that this statement does “not represent S-Games’s values or culture,” with PBZ currently slated for release on PC and PS5. S-Game also assures that it hasn’t ruled out any other platforms yet, implying that Phantom Blade Zero could come to Xbox after all. With so many brilliant soulslikes such as Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, Nioh, and Remnant 2 building the genre up, anticipation for Phantom Blade Zero is at fever pitch.
Between Phantom Blade Zero and Black Myth: Wukong, the future of the soulslike game genre is looking bright. Lies of P kicked down the door for what a truly excellent non-FromSoftware genre entry can do, and these two games look equally as promising.
On top of our own Phantom Blade Zero preview, the world is starting to see more of what the game offers, with the ChinaJoy expo showcasing PBZ at the end of July. While there, S-Game was asked about working with PlayStation as an official partner. The studio confirmed that its partnership with PlayStation doesn’t mean it has an exclusivity deal with the platform.
Here’s where things get muddy, though. An anonymous S-Game developer at ChinaJoy also said “nobody needs” Xbox because it isn’t popular enough in Asia, and S-Game has now denounced this claim in a follow-up statement.
“Recently, we noticed that some media outlets have claimed to have interviewed an unnamed developer from S-Game at Chinajoy, who seems to have made some statements regarding the release platforms and strategy for Phantom Blade Zero,” S-Game writes in a tweet.
“We want to clarify that these claimed statements do not represent S-Game’s values or culture, as we believe in making our game accessible to everyone and have not ruled out any platforms for Phantom Blade Zero. We are hard at work on both the development and publishing fronts to ensure that as many players as possible can enjoy our game at release and in the future.
“Our team is looking forward to sharing more development updates soon, and we are excited to bring our world premiere demo to Gamescom this month.”
It’s still unclear who the S-Game developer making the initial statement was, as they wished to remain anonymous. With the Phantom Blade Zero release date still up in the air, though, the PC and PS5 exclusive may come to Xbox yet.
If you want to learn more about the game, our Phantom Blade Zero interview with game director ‘Soulframe’ is well worth a read. Soulframe tells us that, as a new studio, S-Game doesn’t have the same “privilege” to upset players as FromSoftware does, so the team is instead focusing on making PBZ approachable.
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