Phantom Blade Zero vs Elden Ring: How They Compare

Phantom Blade Zero is out now on PS5 and PC, and it's already drawing the comparison every wuxia action game gets measured against: Elden Ring. The short answer is that they're not really the same kind of game — Phantom Blade Zero is a tighter, combo-driven action RPG with a semi-open structure, while Elden Ring is a sprawling open world built around exploration and build variety — but both have launched to similarly strong critical scores, which is why the comparison keeps coming up. Here's how they actually stack up on release date, price, specs, combat and reviews.

Release date and platforms

Phantom Blade Zero, developed and published by S-GAME, launched on PlayStation 5 and PC on October 29, 2026, with the PC version unlocking a day earlier (October 28) in the US and select regions. It's available on Steam and the Epic Games Store, with no Xbox or Nintendo Switch version announced.

Elden Ring, developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, launched on February 25, 2022 — more than four and a half years earlier — and is available on a much wider platform spread: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC.

Price and editions

Both games launched at the same standard price point. Phantom Blade Zero's standard edition is $59.99, with a $69.99 Digital Deluxe Edition, available digitally through PlayStation Store, Steam and the Epic Games Store. Elden Ring launched at $59.99 for its standard edition in 2022, and has since picked up the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion as a separate purchase — meaning a player buying in today on Elden Ring has two purchase decisions to make (base game plus expansion) against Phantom Blade Zero's single launch-day price tag, assuming no DLC plans are announced for the newer game.

Regional pricing varies by storefront for both games, as it does for nearly every major release — European and other regional listings for Phantom Blade Zero have shown different converted prices than the US figures above, so check your local storefront before buying either title.

Combat and genre: wuxia action vs dark-fantasy soulslike

This is where the two games actually diverge the most, despite constant soulslike comparisons aimed at Phantom Blade Zero. S-GAME has repeatedly pushed back on the soulslike label, describing its combat as faster and more forgiving, built around chainable combos, parries and a "Lingxi" perception system that lets players react to incoming attacks with more room for error than a typical FromSoftware boss fight. Steam lists the game under Action RPG, Martial Arts and Wuxia tags, alongside Hack and Slash and Dark Fantasy — a mix that signals cinematic, kung-fu-driven combat rather than the slow, punishing stamina management Elden Ring is known for. The Wuxia genre itself — martial heroes, flying swordplay, clan politics — is a distinct cultural tradition from the Western dark-fantasy influences (Berserk, Norse and medieval European myth) that shape Elden Ring's Lands Between, and that difference shows up constantly in both games' weapon movesets, enemy design and even their boss arena staging.

Elden Ring, by contrast, is built on FromSoftware's established Souls formula: deliberate, stamina-gated combat, high lethality on both sides, and boss encounters designed to be learned through repeated failure. If you're coming from other recent action-adventure remakes and comparisons, the gap between these two combat systems is the single biggest factor in which game will click for you.

World design: semi-open Wulin vs. The Lands Between

Phantom Blade Zero uses a semi-open structure — distinct, large zones connected rather than one unbroken map — set in a reimagined Wulin, the wuxia genre's traditional martial-arts world, with a "Kungfupunk" art direction that PlayStation's own blog describes as blending punk-influenced visuals with classical kung-fu aesthetics. Zones are built for verticality and set-piece choreography rather than the kind of free-roam exploration Elden Ring is designed around, so you won't find mounts, large-scale open fields, or the same density of optional side dungeons.

Elden Ring is a fully open world, with the Lands Between designed for horse-mounted exploration, optional dungeons, and a famously non-linear progression path. It's one of the most-copied open-world templates in the industry since its release, and still the reference point most outlets reach for when describing any new action RPG's scale. Where Phantom Blade Zero funnels you toward its next scripted confrontation, Elden Ring is comfortable letting you wander for hours before you find the next story beat.

Story, setting and Donnie Yen's role

Phantom Blade Zero casts you as Soul, a young swordsman caught up in a conspiracy among the Ten Sects that govern its version of Wulin. According to PlayStation's official State of Play coverage of the game, the production brought in martial-arts actor and choreographer Donnie Yen in a creative role tied to the game's combat and action direction — a detail S-GAME has leaned on heavily in marketing, given Yen's background in films like Ip Man and Rogue One. The story is told in a more linear, chapter-based structure built around named sect rivalries rather than an open mystery players piece together themselves.

Elden Ring's setting, the Lands Between, follows FromSoftware's long-running approach to narrative: sparse, optional item descriptions and environmental storytelling built around the fractured mythology of the Elden Ring itself and the demigods fighting over its shards. There's no equivalent to a single marketed "star" performance — the storytelling philosophy is built around ambiguity and discovery rather than a clear protagonist arc.

PC system requirements

Phantom Blade Zero's minimum PC specs, per its Steam listing, are an Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1660 (6GB) or Radeon RX 5500 XT (8GB), running Windows 10/11 64-bit with DirectX 12. It also requires 145GB of storage on an SSD — a notably heavy install size for an action RPG, and worth checking against your drive space before buying either edition.

Elden Ring is considerably lighter by comparison, reflecting its 2022 release: it will run on older mid-range hardware that Phantom Blade Zero's SSD requirement and 16GB RAM minimum rule out. If your PC is more than a few years old, or you're deciding between the two on aging hardware, Elden Ring's lower bar is the more realistic buy today regardless of which combat style you prefer.

Critical reception: how the review scores compare

Phantom Blade Zero's review embargo lifted on October 26, 2026, ahead of launch. Metacritic currently lists an 88 Metascore ("Generally Favorable") from 45 critic reviews, and OpenCritic's Top Critic Average sits at 89 from 55 reviews, with 96% of critics recommending the game. For a new, unproven studio's first major release, that's a strong showing — critics have specifically praised the combat system and boss design, which is also covered in more detail in our full launch review roundup. Review scores on both aggregators were still settling in the days immediately after the embargo lift, which is normal for any major release during its first week, so treat the figures above as current snapshots rather than fixed, final numbers.

Elden Ring's Metacritic score has held at 96 since 2022 across 86 critic reviews on PS5, making it one of the highest-rated games of the past decade. No single new release — Phantom Blade Zero included — has matched that number since. That eight-to-nine-point gap on Metacritic matters for context: Phantom Blade Zero is a very strong debut from a first-time AAA studio, but it is landing as a very good new action RPG, not as a rival to one of the best-reviewed games ever made.

Difficulty: is Phantom Blade Zero actually easier?

S-GAME's own messaging, echoed across its marketing and interviews tied to the game's State of Play appearances, is that Phantom Blade Zero is built to be more approachable than a typical soulslike, with its Lingxi perception system designed to telegraph incoming attacks more clearly and give players more tools to respond than FromSoftware's traditionally tight dodge-and-parry windows. That doesn't mean the game is easy in absolute terms — reviews note challenging boss encounters — but the design intent is explicitly to lower the entry barrier that keeps some players away from Elden Ring and its Souls predecessors.

Elden Ring offers no comparable built-in accessibility system at the combat level; its difficulty comes from stamina management, careful positioning and, for players who want it, summons and co-op. If a punishing learning curve is the specific thing keeping you away from this genre, Phantom Blade Zero is the more deliberately welcoming of the two by design, not just by reputation.

Which should you play first?

If you want a long, open-world game built around exploration, build theorycrafting and optional difficulty through exploration order, Elden Ring is still the bigger, more replayable game more than four years on — and it's on far more platforms, including last-gen consoles. If you want a tighter, faster, combo-heavy martial-arts action game with a shorter, more linear critical path, a marketed cinematic pedigree through Donnie Yen's involvement, and you already own a PS5 or a Steam-ready PC, Phantom Blade Zero is the newer pick and, based on its launch scores, a credible one. They're not direct substitutes for each other, and owning one isn't a reason to skip the other if both genres appeal to you — think of Phantom Blade Zero as the faster weeknight session and Elden Ring as the hundred-hour commitment.

What's next

Phantom Blade Zero has no announced DLC, New Game Plus details, or Xbox/Switch ports as of launch — S-GAME hasn't said whether a post-launch content roadmap is coming, which is typical for a studio's first major release while it watches how the launch window performs. Elden Ring's expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, is sold separately for players who haven't picked it up, and remains the most substantial way to add new content to a four-year-old game that otherwise hasn't changed its core systems since launch.

If you're deciding between the two on a new controller setup or weighing this purchase against other October releases like the GTA 6 pre-order window, check platform availability carefully — Phantom Blade Zero's PS5/PC-only release is the biggest practical difference between the two, and it rules the game out entirely for anyone on Xbox or Switch who still wants a new combat-focused action RPG this year.

Written byJonah Reyes

Jonah Reyes leads Pandromeda's gaming coverage: console and handheld hardware, release dates, pricing changes, patch notes and the business moves behind the biggest franchises. He sources every date and price from the platform holders and publishers themselves, and says plainly when something is still only a rumour.

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