Hour-long gameplay videos of Phantom Blade Zero have surfaced online, giving fans the clearest look yet at what’s to come. Developed by Chinese studio S-Game, Phantom Blade Zero is an upcoming wuxia ARPG built in Unreal Engine 5, with a fast-paced, over-the-top combat system that has already attracted the industry’s attention. PBZ is set to release on PlayStation 5 and PC, with an official release date expected in 2025, and a likely launch window of 2026.

Originally announced in the 2023 PlayStation State of Play, Phantom Blade Zero has been described as a “wuxia action game,” merging inspirations from multiple genres to form something unique. S-Game has shared snippets of Phantom Blade Zero’s gameplay in the past, including a full boss fight earlier this year, but none have been quite as much of a deep dive as what’s circulating now.

Related New Soulslike Game is a Big Hit on Steam A new soulslike game debuts to highly impressive player counts on Steam, rocketing to the upper echelons of the platform’s most-played titles.

Multiple YouTube channels, including GamersPrey, have uploaded 50 to 60-minute Phantom Blade Zero demo gameplay recordings online, showcasing the game’s combat systems, level design, and enemy variety. These videos are from S-Party, a two-day event held by S-Game in Beijing on July 26-27, where invited players and creators were allowed to capture and upload their playthroughs of a demo build.

60-Minute Phantom Blade Zero Demo Gameplay Video

According to event-goers, the demo version of the game featured three difficulty settings: Breaker, Initiate, and Defier, contrary to earlier leaks suggesting there would be four difficulty options in Phantom Blade Zero. It’s unclear whether the leaked information was inaccurate or if the full game will include the missing option, but those who played on the hardest available setting described the experience as incredibly challenging, with some even having trouble reaching the first boss.

Close

Creator of PBZ and S-Game CEO, Soulframe Liang, has been famously adamant that Phantom Blade Zero is neither a Soulslike nor a traditional action game, but in a genre of its own. The latest footage seems to support his claim. Players who have had a chance to play the title have described it as a blend of Devil May Cry, Sekiro, and Ninja Gaiden, with some Soulslike mechanics like bonfires and Estus Flasks mixed in.

Many are wondering if Phantom Blade Zero can replicate Black Myth: Wukong’s success, as the hype surrounding S-Game’s genre-blending game is just as high, if not higher. More gameplay for PBZ should be coming along soon, as the game is set to appear at China Joy 2025, an event that is scheduled for August 1-4. Global fans will also get a chance to get hands-on with PBZ soon, as its demo is coming to Gamescom 2025, running from August 20-24.

This week, Chinese developer S-GAME hosted S-PARTY 2025, a two-day event in Beijing during which fans could get hands-on with the highly anticipated Phantom Blade Zero. IGN India has posted a 22-minute gameplay video from this new demo that shows some hidden boss fights, secret item discoveries, and new weapons. We’ve embedded it below.

Phantom Blade Zero is undoubtedly one of the most eagerly awaited games in the action RPG/Soulslike genre, although as you might recall, the developers stressed that it is not to be considered a pure Soulslike game.

Last month, S-GAME CEO Soulframe clarified exactly what he thinks the game is:

Phantom Blade Zero is neither a Soulslike game nor a traditional action game. I’ve always admired the creators who defined these genres. I spent years immersed in their work, drawing inspiration and learning from their brilliance. But in the process of making this game, we stumbled onto a path we never expected:

At first, we just wanted to make a game that brought ‘hack and slash’ Into a multi layered map. But once the animations and environmental assets came together, everything was “stitched together” by a strong cultural aesthetic — creating something that felt deeply familiar to us, yet is rarely seen or experienced in games.

Broadly speaking, it falls under the category of ARPGs. But more specifically, maybe it could create a new identity that is Wuxia Action Games? Because here you’ll get to experience:

Leaping across rooftops under a rain of arrows;

Fighting off pursuers atop a speeding carriage;

Uncovering the truth behind an incident that shocked the world years ago;

And even more iconic cinema moments.

Soulframe also added that Phantom Blade Zero will feature three difficulty settings (Wayfarer, Gamechanger, and Hellwalker, although the latter is only unlocked for a second playthrough with New Game+), unlike traditional Soulslike titles.

The game still has no release window, but we might learn more at Gamescom, where S-GAME is set to bring a large presence with a massive 500 m² booth in Hall 6 (B-050G) featuring over 60 demo stations. The demo is said to be the most comprehensive shared publicly to date, a full 1-hour playable experience featuring all-new boss battles, striking level design, immersive storytelling, and visceral blade-to-blade combat.

We’ll be at Gamescom and look forward to checking out the new demo after reporting on last year’s Phantom Blade Zero hands-on.

Summary Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will debut on Paramount+ in 2026, offering a new class of cadets and the return of some familiar faces.

After the underperformance of Star Trek Beyond, Paramount+ has found success with Star Trek series like Discovery and Picard.

The teaser trailer for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introduces Holly Hunter’s Captain Ake, new cadets, and hints at a villain played by Paul Giamatti.

Star Trek diehards have been waiting with bated breath for the first look at the new Starfleet Academy series. Well, the San Diego Comic-Con has certainly provided in that regard.

Star Trek has become the flagship of Paramount+’s streaming offerings over the past decade. 2016’s Star Trek Beyond failed to ignite the box office in the way that Paramount Pictures was hoping and has left the feature film franchise stalled out ever since. As Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk has been grounded, Trek has had multiple successful series head straight to Paramount+ to the delight of the fandom. Live-action drama series Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds have been joined by animated series Lower Decks and Prodigy as well as an anthology collection of shorts aptly titled Short Treks. In all, the Star Trek fandom has gotten dozens upon dozens of hours of original content since Star Trek: Discovery first debuted in September 2017. That doesn’t mean they aren’t looking for more Trek goodness and Starfleet Academy is on the way to provide that in spades.

Related Star Trek Fans, Rejoice: Paramount+ Is Bringing Back Strange New Worlds For Even More Adventures Even though the third season hasn’t even begun airing yet, Paramount+ has decided to bring the Strange New Worlds cast and crew back for more.

This year’s San Diego Comic-Con served as the official coming-out party for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The full main cast was on hand for everyone to behold, major details were made available for the first time, and a teaser trailer was finally released for everyone to behold after a lengthy wait. And, yes, don’t worry… the end of the teaser trailer provides a first look at Paul Giamatti’s part-Klingon, part-Tellarite villain Nus Braka. The creative team surely knows about the excitement surrounding Giamatti’s addition to the Star Trek franchise.

The Starfleet Academy Trailer Provides More Of That Trademark Star Trek Goodness

And How Great Is Holly Hunter’s Voice?

Starfleet Academy takes place after the events of Star Trek: Discovery, where the entirety of Starfleet has been away from Earth for more than twelve decades. The show will follow a new class of Starfleet cadets on their journey to becoming full-fledged officers. Of course, Holly Hunter’s Captain Nahla Ake gets star billing in the trailer as she is undoubtedly the most famous face in the show’s main cast. Ake also serves as chancellor of Starfleet Academy and looks to guide a new generartion of Starfleet while captaining the USS Athena.

“We look at the generation now that is inheriting all of this division and all these major issues. We wanted to create a show that anchored us back to [Gene] Roddenberry’s essential vision of hope. How do you find it, how do you rebuild it?” – Alex Kurtzman

Fans were also introduced to the main cast, including Sandro Rosta’s Caleb Mir, Karim Diané’s Jay-Den Kragg, Kerrice Brooks’s Series Acclimation Mil (aka “SAM”), Bella Shepard’s Genesis Lythe, and George Hawkins’s Darem Reymi. Returning to the Star Trek franchise are Tig Notaro, Mary Wiseman, and Oded Fehr of Discovery and Robert Picardo of Voyager and Prodigy. There was no word on who She-Hulk herself, Tatiana Maslany, will be playing in the series, but they can’t give everything away from the jump, eh? Also, Giamatti gets about three seconds of screentime and he is clearly already the best thing about the show.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is set to debut on Paramount+ sometime in early 2026.

Star Trek Created by Gene Roddenberry First Film Star Trek: The Motion Picture Latest Film Star Trek Beyond First TV Show Star Trek: The Original Series Latest TV Show Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Creation Year 1966

Source: Variety

In the Borderlands community, 2019’s Borderlands 3 is often regarded as a step-down in quality from its predecessors. While the core gameplay loop of Gearbox Software’s hit title is perhaps the best the series has ever seen, the humor, antagonists, and quality of the game’s writing have been widely criticized by fans. Many have argued that Borderlands 3’s over-reliance on bullet-spongy enemies and boss fights has significantly hindered the tactical depth of its combat. Others, meanwhile, have been critical of the game’s somewhat unbalanced endgame, messy UI, and excessive amount of paid DLCs.

If there’s one aspect of Borderlands 3 that hasn’t received much criticism, though, it’s the game’s playable characters. Like every mainline Borderlands title, Borderlands 3 has four Vault Hunters to choose from, each of which comes with their own unique skills and abilities. From a gameplay perspective, the game’s cast of characters is incredibly versatile, ranging from Amara the Siren, who excels at close-quarters combat, to Moze the Gunner, who is heavily reliant on explosives. While Borderlands 3’s Vault Hunters are all pretty distinct from each other, there is one character in the game, FL4K the Beastmaster, who was initially going to look and play very differently from the rest of the cast.

Related Borderlands 4 Is Bringing Back Its Most Hated Character, and I Couldn’t Be Happier Though it remains to be seen how much screentime Borderlands 3’s Ava will receive in BL4, I’m just glad Gearbox isn’t giving up on her.

Borderlands 3’s Scrapped FL4K Character Designs Shouldn’t Go to Waste

Close

FL4K is a Robot Who Loves Animals in the Final Version of Borderlands 3

In the version of Borderlands 3 that Gearbox released, FL4K is portrayed as a mysterious robot who has a fondness for animals of all shapes and sizes. Prior to the events of the game, FL4K served as something known as an Indexing Unit under a person called the Grand Archivist. After gaining self-consciousness and a lust for blood, however, FL4K’s employment was cut short, and they decided to go off on a soul-searching journey across the galaxy. FL4K, who usually keeps an animal companion by their side, follows a hunting-based lifestyle in order to please Mistress Death, their personified concept of death itself.

It is not known why FL4K gained consciousness, or what exactly they were archiving when working for the Grand Archivist.

FL4K Had Several Fantasy-Inspired Character Designs, Which Were Scrapped by Gearbox Mid-Development

Although FL4K has a fairly interesting backstory, they weren’t always meant to be a robot. In The Art of Borderlands 3, Gearbox Software revealed that the character underwent a lot of changes during the game’s development. FL4K was first conceived as a high-tech Robin Hood-like character with a theatrical personality and a preference for sniper rifles. Later on, however, the character received several fantasy-inspired redesigns, one of which looked a bit like an elf. The only thing that remained constant throughout all these versions of FL4K was the character’s love of animals.

Out of all the incarnations of FL4K that never saw the light of day, the elf-like version of the character is arguably the most interesting one. In one of the early concept arts for FL4K, which can be seen in the Art of Borderlands 3 book, the character is depicted as a blue-skinned, pointy-eared individual with a scythe in their hand, some spikes on their clothes, and a dragon-like creature by their side. While it did look great, this design for FL4K, along with all the other fantasy-themed iterations of the character, was discarded by Gearbox because it didn’t fit in with the sci-fi setting of the game.

Gearbox Could Use FL4K’s Scrapped Elf-Like Concept for a Character in a New Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Game

Although it makes sense why Gearbox decided to make FL4K a robot instead of an elf, the character’s scrapped concepts don’t need to stay on the cutting room floor forever. A Vault Hunter that looks similar to these older versions of FL4K might seem out of place in a mainline Borderlands game, but they would fit perfectly in a new Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands installment. The first Tiny Tina’s game is set within the world of a fantasy-themed TTRPG, and since Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands sold fairly well, the chances of a new entry being released in the series are pretty high. If Gearbox ever makes a Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands 2, hopefully it will use some of the scrapped character designs from Borderlands 3 in the game in some way.