Phantom Blade 0 Phantom Blade 0

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Phantom Blade 0 makes you feel like a total badass 

Fun, engaging hack and slash game

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Difficulty: Gamechanger (Normal). Time played: 1:07:04. Death count: 13. Those were the numbers I tallied at the end of my hands-on session playing Phantom Blade 0 at gamescom 2025 in Cologne, Germany. 

The demo at gamescom 2025 gives you a pretty extensive impression of how the game’s combat looks and feels. Which is great because it looks like Phantom Blade 0 is placing most of its bets on its prowess as a hack and slasher. 

Controls 

Phantom Blade Zero | Year of the Snake trailer

If you have any experience at all with action games, this should be relatively easy to pick-up. We played on the PlayStation 5 Pro so these are the controls I’ll reference. 

Square and Triangle are your primary and secondary attack buttons. Cross or X is, per usual, the jump button, and Circle lets you dodge. Pressing Circle and then using L3 will let you determine the direction of your dodge. 

Holding L1 lets you block while pressing it at the right moment lets you parry attacks. L2 becomes available once you’ve filled up the gauge of your main weapon. L2 unleashes your special attack. 

R1 lets you interact with your environment. I mostly remember using it to scale and run along walls . R2, meanwhile, triggers the use of your equipped secondary weapon. 

You essentially carry four weapons in combat. There are two slots each for your main and secondary weapons. You can switch them out any time during combat using the left directional button for the main weapon and the right directional button for the secondary weapon. 

The down directional button lets you consume items. For this demo, it was used for healing. 

Combat

What carried this whole experience is how polished and engaging the combat felt. Not once will you feel like you don’t have the tools to win despite facing off with multiple enemies at certain points in the demo. 

There are certain combinations of Square and Triangle for specific combos. But I’m gonna be honest with you, during the first 15 minutes, I was mostly button mashing and was still getting stylish results. 

After beating down enemies, a Triangle button appears that lets you execute finishers. These look absolutely striking and differ depending on the weapon you have equipped. And while it can be interrupted to start, once you’re in the middle of it, you’re practically invincible. 

If you deal enough damage to multiple enemies, you can chain these finishers from one enemy to another for an even higher level of badassery finishes. 

Boss encounters

It wasn’t until the first boss encounter that I actually locked in and became more mindful of when I block, dodge, and parry. Most of my 13 death counts also happened here. 

It wasn’t particularly difficult to read the boss’s patterns. My elder millennial reflexes just couldn’t keep up. It took plenty of tries, but with the encouragement of my play guide, Luke (shoutout to Luke, he was great company during the playthrough), I finally bested the first boss encounter of the demo. 

It took a few tries of learning his patterns and properly timing my blocks, dodges, and parries, along with changing up my loadout to best deal with the boss battle. 

So, while you can get away with button mashing through the fodder throughout the game, the boss battles will test both your reflexes and strategically figuring out your windows to attack. 

After that there were a couple more mini-boss encounters, which I surprisingly dealt with in one go, before the final boss of the demo – the Seven Judgments. It’s the boss battle featured in the Year of the Snake trailer that looked absolutely difficult to deal with. 

At this point though, I was already locked in and only died once. Still, it was a challenging, engaging, and extremely fun boss encounter. 

Watch it play out here: 

Release date and more game details

I tried pressing but as of now, the folks over at S-Game still aren’t ready to disclose any potential release window for the game. We’re just gonna have to wait. 

The demo itself showed the potential for some of your usual exploration and mini-puzzle solving. But bear in mind that this is mostly a linear hack and slash game most similar to the likes of Ninja Gaiden. 

Hack and slash at its finest 

I know it was only an hour of gameplay, but it was more than enough to get me looking forward to seeing more of what Phantom Blade 0 has to offer. I’m 100% certain more depth will be added to the combat and it will be an overall fun and flow-state-inducing experience once it fully releases. 

Gaming

Zenless Zone Zero Version 2.7 available on March 24

Featuring Hollow Champions tournament, new Agents

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Version 2.7 of Zenless Zone Zero will become available on March 24 across platforms. Called “Champions Never Fall to the Past”, the update features the Hollow Champion competition and new agents.

The Hollow Champion competition sweeps across New Eridu — hosted by TOPS — spreading excitement as far as beyond the city center.

Competitors can take home high-stakes rewards, including the rare Porcelloy W-Engine. The tournament’s scale draws not only familiar allies, but even several unexpected participants.

There’s the Public Security’s Metropolitan Order Division, aside from the Cunning Hares and Sons of Calydon. It is said that the Calydon’s Sweepers will also step into the competition.

New Agents emerge

Furthermore, among the figures emerging from the shadows is the infamous Black Wolf Romeul. In battle, Romeul can activate a Corruptive Barrier for increased CRIT Damage Resistance and Interruption Resistance. This also causes opponents to continuously lose HP.

To break through this barrier, teams must be capable of delivering sustained Anomaly damage. This adds a new tactical layer for those wanting to challenge him.

Moreover, Cissia of the Metropolitan Order Division will also enter the race. As an S-Rank Electric Attack agent, Cissia gains three stacks of Venom upon entering battle.

Each stack deals Electric damage, while temporarily increasing her own CRIT Rate. The Venom gradually dissipates over time, but Cissia can also generate additional stacks through her EX Special Attack. As the stacks accumulate, she may expend them with her Basic Attack, Serpent’s Kiss.

Joining Cissia is the Angels of Delusion lineup, captained by their dancer, Nangong Yu. The S-Rank Ether Stun Agent enhances her team’s Anomaly Buildup Rate against Stunned enemies.

During combat, she automatically regenerates Downbeat over time. Additional Downbeat is also restored whenever a squad member inflicts Anomaly on enemies.

Once the Downbeat is sufficient, she can unleash powerful charged attacks to extend the enemy’s Stun duration. This is while her own Stun and Anomaly buildup accelerates. Meanwhile, her Ultimate can activate Ether Veil: Delusion Reprise to boost the squad’s entire Attack.

Proxies can unlock an exclusive faction wallpaper after collecting all members of Angels of Delusion. In addition, S-Rank Ice Rupture Agent Yidhari and Electric Attack Agent Seed will also return to Zenless Zone Zero Version 2.7.

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Gaming

Infinix expands SEA footprint with more official MLBB tourney partnerships

Infinix becomes MPL Indonesia, MSL Thailand official partner

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Infinix has announced a landmark expansion of its partnership with Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) Esports.

As part of the strategic move, Infinix is now the official partner of various MLBB tournaments across Southeast Asia.

The smartphone brand is now the Presenting Partner of the MLBB Professional League (MPL) Indonesia, as well as the Titling Partner of the MLBB Development League (MDL) Indonesia.

Infinix also strengthens its regional footprint further as the Official Sponsor of the MLBB Super League (MSL) Thailand.

These partnerships build on successful collaborations with the Philippines and Malaysia, deepening Infinix’s commitment to the region’s most competitive markets.

Next-level fan, community engagement

As an official partner, Infinix will deliver comprehensive end-to-end support for the tournaments. This includes supplying tournament-grade hardware and executing localized fan engagement initiatives.

Infinix’s AIoT devices are also going to be on display at the tournaments. Moreover, their flagship regional esports IP, the Infinix Campus Cup, will bring the competition to campuses with offline matches played on Infinix gaming phones.

Uniting Southeast Asian markets

The 2026 MLBB Tournament Series officially kicks off on March 20, with the brand powering the opening matches of MPL Philippines and MSL Myanmar as their Official Gaming Phone.

On March 27, Infinix will debut its presence at MPL Indonesia Season 17, followed by the opening of MDL Indonesia three days after.

As a presenting partner, Infinix will also crown the MPL Indonesia season champions with the “KINGFINIX” title.

The regional expansion continues on April 3 with the start of MPL Malaysia and MPL Cambodia. Infinix’s strong presence across the region then culminates with MSL Thailand on April 18.

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Valve is embroiled in a lawsuit with New York over loot boxes

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Valve has been embroiled in an odd war as of late. A few weeks ago, the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the gaming company for allegedly encouraging children to gamble through loot boxes primarily found in Counter-Strike 2. Today, Valve is fighting back by declaring how little its loot boxes have to do with gambling.

For years, governments have had a problem with loot boxes. To them, the mechanic makes it too easy for gamers to fall into a gambling addiction. In essence, loot boxes are earnable packs that contain a single or a number of random items that the player can use for their game. Most of the time, these items are purely cosmetic and don’t give a gameplay advantage.

Like Blizzard before it, Valve is also defending its loot boxes as non-essential to how players engage with their games. “There is no disadvantage to a player not spending money,” their statement reads.

Additionally, Valve says that their loot boxes are no different from Pokémon cards and Labubu blind boxes. As such, the company is also defending their users’ right to transfer obtained items to other users, as with two players trading cards or Pop Mart figurines.

Now, these items have monetary value in the market. In the same way, a rare Counter-Strike 2 skin can fetch thousands of dollars. However, Valve says that they are already proactive in shutting down accounts made only to gamble and avoiding pro-gambling businesses.

Valve is capping off its statement by saying that the NYAG is forcing the company to collect more information from its users, especially those using VPNs to prevent being located in New York. The company says that it will continue to protect user data, despite the demand.

SEE ALSO: Valve is delaying the launch of the Steam Machine

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