Phantom Blade Zero Tops Steam as Day-One Patch Arrives

Phantom Blade Zero leads Steam’s sales charts before release, as S-Game confirms a day-one patch, warns of Nvidia driver issues, and reflects on the game’s ambitious development.

Phantom Blade Zero is already generating a lot of excitement. It's already number one on Steam's best-selling games list, so players can’t even start their journey. The highly anticipated action game by S-Game is gearing up for a ton of pre-orders, a massive day-one update, and critical performance tips for PC players. 

The developers also shared an emotional note about how long the project took to produce and the creative process behind its unique martial arts-inspired world. The game went live at 10 PM Eastern Time and 7 PM Pacific Time, a couple of hours earlier than the customary midnight launch window. Pre-orders are a strong early indicator of commercial interest, but the title’s first-weekend success should paint a more accurate picture of its overall sales momentum.

Reports also suggest that PC is generating over 70% of the game’s pre-order sales, with the balance coming from PlayStation.

We don’t have third-party confirmation of the exact split. Still, the data suggest PC gaming is becoming an increasingly crucial platform for big-budget action games, particularly in areas where it has a strong presence. S-Game has revealed that Phantom Blade Zero will launch with a roughly 5 GB day-one patch. The update, the development team says, addresses issues and potentially speeds up ray tracing and route tracing.

If you’ve already downloaded the 133GB preload, then you can install the extra update before beginning the game. People who haven't downloaded the current version of the game should do so immediately. The patch is particularly crucial for PC users who want to use the advanced graphical options. The developers have also worked to maintain visual quality even when ray tracing is off.

PC minimum requirements: NVIDIA GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, 16GB RAM, Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600. These requirements are for 1080p @ 30 fps. For 1440p, 16GB of RAM, an RTX 3060 Ti or Radeon RX 6700 XT, and an Intel Core i5-10600K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X should do the trick for 60 fps.

S-Game also told PC gamers that the NVIDIA 621.01 driver might not work with all games.

Lang said testing showed unstable performance in several cases. Phantom Blade Zero, driver 617.42 is the current best driver version. Players who have already updated to a newer driver may wish to reinstall version 617.42. They can also wait for the next NVIDIA driver update, which the developers think will fix the highlighted issues.

But if you want to play in native 4K with ray tracing and route tracing, you will need even more powerful hardware. While the minimum and recommended specs are decent, you'll need a more powerful system to make the most of the game’s visual settings. Soulframe posted a long message regarding the origin of Phantom Blade Zero. 

They said it all began with Rain Blood: Town of Death, an indie game made in RPG Maker about 20 years ago. The original idea was supposed to feature the Phantom setting, a fictional setting based on classic Chinese wuxia literature. Later, the team expanded it to include body modification and additional planets connected to the primary one. “It was a personal artistic project that grew into a much larger production,” the developer said.

The team had initially unveiled the game during a PlayStation presentation, then spent thousands of hours motion-capturing and scanning towns and mountain villages around China to create detailed landscapes. The production also used specialized cultural and martial arts expertise. Masters from Canton taught the lion dance routine.

Practitioners from Mount Emei taught sword tactics at the Shaolin Temple, while monks taught hand-to-hand combat. Martial arts actors led by action director Yang Leu created the strikes, dodges, combos, defensive actions, and execution, with help from Donnie Yen, and the team discussed several smaller design decisions influenced by user feedback.

For example, the PS5 version of Clashing Blade offers three button-layout options and audio tones you can turn on or off. Phantom Blade Zero is ready to go, and its early success on Steam is a positive omen. But its debut weekend performance, whether it’s stable on PCs, and how action-game fans react will ultimately determine whether the big project can parlay pre-release hype into long-term financial success.