GHOST IN THE PC

On the other side of the world with PHANTOM BLADE ZERO, a 'kungfupunk' action epic in the making

-  By Wes Fenlon

Qiwei 'Soulframe' Liang, game director at S-Game, has slipped away again, and when I see him next he'll look impossibly fresh despite the Beijing summer's swelteringsome might say outright evil-98% humidity. There's no hope of beating the heat in a 100-year-old decommissioned blast furnace, a recent Olympic venue now filled with hundreds of PCs running Phantom Blade Zero, which I've flown to China to play. But as I slowly sweat my way from solid to a liquid that holds the vague shape of a cotton shirt, Liang flits between interviews with just enough time to sneakily swap to a fresh black T-shirt for each one. I get it: when you're making a game this hellbent on looking cool every single second, you've gotta walk the walk.

FROM WUKONG TO WUXIA

In a 2016 issue of PC Gamer, Andy Kelly declared virtual toilets to be the secret to understanding the unspoken priorities of a game and the people making it. But I'd argue virtual ladders have even more to say, even about the art of looking cool—something we do not normally associate with climbing a ladder.

Consider the last ladder you approached in a game. Did it wrest away control of your character, or let you Wile E Coyote yourself right off the ledge? Could you hit a button to slide down like an action hero? Did it let you climb up the wrong side until you banged your head, or refuse admittance altogether? All these little things say something about how clumsy or empowered a game's makers want you to feel, which is why I immediately noticed that the protagonist of Phantom Blade Zero doesn't really respect ladders as, like, a concept.