Phantom Blade Zero PC requirements, price and launch details: what is confirmed

Phantom Blade Zero PC requirements: what Steam lists

Phantom Blade Zero's official PC requirements are on its Steam page, and they ask for a mid-range gaming PC rather than a flagship. The minimum configuration is an Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB graphics card, with DirectX 12 and 64-bit Windows 10 or 11. Steam notes that this tier targets 1080p at 30 frames per second with upscaling enabled.

The recommended configuration steps up to an Intel Core i5-10600K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, the same 16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB. That tier targets 1440p at 60 frames per second, again with upscaling enabled. Both tiers require the game to be installed on an SSD, so a hard drive will not meet the listing.

The two tiers matter because both lean on upscaling. A 30fps floor at 1080p with upscaling means the minimum is a playable target rather than a comfortable one, and anyone on a GTX 1660 should expect to lower settings. The Steam page we opened lists only these two tiers. Some outlets have reported separate ray tracing and path tracing tiers, but we could not confirm those on the Steam listing, so we are not repeating them here.

Price, editions and platforms

Steam lists Phantom Blade Zero at $59.99 for the standard edition and $69.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition. The store page names S-GAME Studio as the developer and S-GAME Publishing as the publisher. The game supports full controller support, including DualSense, and Steam Cloud saves, and it is single player only.

Steam shows a release date of October 28, 2026 on its US-facing page, while press and the developer's own schedule cite October 29. Those are the same moment seen from different time zones: dlcompare reports an October 29 launch at 2 a.m. GMT, which is the evening of October 28 on the US West Coast. If you are in the Americas, expect the game to unlock the night before the date most articles print.

The game is also coming to PlayStation 5 on the same day. Physical editions for PS5 were reported by outlets relaying the release trailer as arriving in 2027, so the launch on October 29 is digital on console. We could not open an official PlayStation Store page for pricing, so we are not giving a PS5 price.

What the game is, according to the developer

S-GAME describes Phantom Blade Zero on Steam as a fusion of classic wuxia storytelling and action, powered by Unreal Engine 5. You play as Soul, a warrior with only sixty-six days left to live, framed for the murder of his master and wounded in the heart. The Steam description says players can master more than 30 primary weapons and over 20 unique Phantom Edges taken from fallen foes.

The developer's own phrase for the look is kungfupunk: martial arts and cold steel mixed with mechanical prosthetics, industrial ruins and traditional Chinese aesthetics. Steam says the combat was shaped using motion capture and choreographers from the golden age of wuxia cinema. Outlets covering a recent boss trailer report at least 50 bosses, though that count is a press figure rather than something we found on the store page.

For readers comparing it with other action games, Steam tags it as action and RPG and lists adjustable difficulty. That is a meaningful detail in a genre known for steep difficulty, and it suggests S-GAME is offering options without calling the game easy.

Download size and preload: what is reported

The PS5 download size comes from the PlayStation Game Size account on X, which tracks Sony's PlayStation Network database, as relayed by Notebookcheck on October 16 and dlcompare on October 17. It lists 134.857GB, which is large even by current standards. Neither outlet gives a PC install size, and the Steam page we opened does not either. Plan for a big download and clear space on an SSD.

Preload timing is less settled. Notebookcheck and dlcompare cite October 27, two days before launch. TwistedVoxel, on October 20, reported a preload starting on October 26 at 7 p.m. Pacific, which is 2 a.m. GMT on October 27, so the two reports may describe the same moment in different time zones. We found no official S-GAME or PlayStation confirmation of either time, so treat the exact preload hour as unconfirmed.

The practical advice is to check the Steam and PlayStation Store pages on October 26 and 27 for a preload button, rather than rely on any one outlet's clock.

Reviews, the embargo and what is still unknown

Press reports point to a review embargo lifting on October 26, three days before launch. TwistedVoxel says it comes from a ResetEra thread, and that article contains a copy-paste error naming the wrong game in one sentence, so we are treating the date as expected rather than confirmed. We found no official S-GAME statement of the embargo date.

If the date holds, buyers will have three days of independent reviews and performance reports before the game unlocks. That is useful for a PC game whose requirements lean on upscaling, because frame-rate and stability reports on mid-range cards such as the GTX 1660 will only appear once reviewers have the code.

Unknowns remain. We do not have confirmed ray tracing requirements, a PC install size, a day-one patch size or any hands-on frame-rate data. We will update this piece if S-GAME or Valve publishes them.

What this means for your PC and your wallet

For most people with a gaming PC from the last five or six years, the recommended tier is the one to aim at. An RTX 3060 Ti or Radeon RX 6700 XT is a common mid-range card, and 16GB of RAM is standard. If you have less, the minimum tier's GTX 1660 is the entry point and should run the game at 1080p with upscaling, though at 30fps.

The $59.99 price is at the standard top end for a big new release, and the $69.99 Deluxe Edition costs $10 more. Steam's page shows the two prices but we did not open the full list of Deluxe extras, so check what the extra $10 buys before paying it.

If you are undecided, waiting until reviews arrive on October 26, if that embargo holds, costs nothing and answers the questions the requirements sheet cannot, namely how the game actually runs on your hardware.