Phantom Blade Zero Director Reveals How He Made 'A Playable Kung Fu Movie’ with Donnie Yen
Polygon spoke with Phantom Blade Zero director Soulframe Liang about how developer S-Game, with Donnie Yen's help, created the game's wuxia combat.
Phantom Blade Zero, a kung fu-centric action game, has recently released and has garnered attention for its unique "kungfupunk" world. The game's director, Soulframe Liang, aimed to create a playable kung fu movie experience that emulates the look and feel of wuxia stories. To achieve this, Liang brought in renowned kung fu actor Donnie Yen as a creative consultant, with Yen playing the character Mó Yuan, a golden-masked hero.
Liang and S-Game introduced advanced motion capture technology to bring Phantom Blade Zero to life. Combat director Yang Liu, known as "Master Yang," played a pivotal role in shaping the game's combat system. Liu has extensive martial arts experience and ensured that the game's combat feels authentic to Chinese culture and martial arts traditions. His team of 15-20 individuals at the Shanghai motion capture studio developed a unique combat system, with each weapon having up to 10 different attack styles.
The developers strived to create a game that goes beyond surface-level differences, focusing on the essence of Chinese kung fu. This required a new approach to combat, with Liu emphasizing that there is no one-size-fits-all method for creating combo sequences or animations. Instead, each action should connect to any possible future action, making the combat feel fluid and authentic.
Written by urgent.news from Polygon's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
