Phantom Blade Zero Reviews Officially Surpass Every Soulslike of 2026

The year now has a clear front-runner. Critics have weighed in on Phantom Blade Zero, the Wuxia-inspired action title from S-Game, and their verdicts place it among the best-reviewed releases of 2026. That standing could also strengthen its case for a nomination at the Game Awards in December.

At the time of writing, Phantom Blade Zero holds an 88 on Metacritic. That puts it above several other polished, awards-hungry action releases this year, including Control Resonant, 007 First Light and Saros. It does fall short of the year’s top racing games, though. Star Wars Galactic Racer matches its 88, while Forza Horizon 6 leads comfortably with a 90. Below is how the critics responded.

Critics call Phantom Blade Zero a razor-sharp action game

IGN’s Travis Northup gave the game a 9/10. He described it as one of the finest action games he has played in years, with combat that stayed fresh across roughly 50 hours. He found the revenge-and-betrayal plot overly conservative. He also noted a few annoyances, including invisible walls and technical hiccups. Even so, he considered the experience stunning and superbly tuned.

GameSpot’s Richard Wakeling reached a similar conclusion in an 8/10 review. His headline says the combat is good enough that you will forget the story makes little sense. Wakeling enjoyed the kungfupunk look and a handful of strong story beats, but he found the plot hard to follow and harder to care about. For him, the fighting makes up for it. It evokes a Chinese martial-arts film, with feats that defy the usual conventions of third-person action games.

Dave Aubrey of VGC awarded four stars. He too admired the kungfupunk world and the head-spinning martial arts combat. He went as far as calling it clearly stronger than comparable games such as Black Myth: Wukong. (That game earned a Game of the Year nomination at the 2024 Game Awards and took home Best Action Game.) Like several other reviewers, Aubrey was left cold by the story, and he described both the plot and the cast as bland.

Eurogamer’s Emma Kent was more reserved, giving it three stars. She felt the pacing of the combat was uneven, with frantic skirmishes against minor enemies followed by sluggish boss fights. Kent praised the animation and the gorgeous environments. She said the brawls against several foes at once feel cinematic and let players fight with real flair. Boss encounters, however, drained that momentum and left her feeling as if she were fighting with a wooden sword. She also liked parts of the narrative, especially its visual storytelling, but embargo restrictions kept her from going into detail.

Here at Polygon, Paulo Kawanishi called the game the “perfect martial arts game,” with both the strengths and flaws that label implies. He, too, found the story confusing. In his view, the game trades interactivity for spectacle in its pursuit of cinematic martial arts. S-Game succeeds in recreating the thrill of a great Wuxia film, he argued, but for all its visual brilliance it doesn’t trust players enough to perform those techniques themselves.