Gaming

Phantom Blade 0 makes you feel like a total badass

Fun, engaging hack and slash game

Published

August 24, 2025

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

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.

Related Topics:Phantom Blade 0 PlayStation PlayStation 5 S-Game

Gaming

Esports Nations Cup 2026 secures US$ 45M funding

ENC to elevate global esports with structured national ecosystem

Published

January 30, 2026

GadgetMatch

The inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC) 2026 has just secured a US$ 45 million funding commitment, the Esports World Cup Foundation has announced.

This three-part funding commitment is structured to support the esports ecosystem through player and coach prizing, club release incentives, and national team development.

The first ever ENC will include a US$ 20 million in total prize money, paid directly to players and coaches across 16 titles.

The ENC introduces a placement-based prize framework, applied across all game titles. It is designed to be clear and player-centric.

Every qualified participant earns prize money and is guaranteed a minimum of three matches. Equal placement earns equal pay, meaning the same finishing position plays the same amount per player across all titles.

For a quick overview, the first-place finisher earns US$ 50,000 per player, whether competing in a solo or team title. Second-placers get US$ 30,000 per player, and third-placers get US$ 15,000 per player.

For team titles, payouts scale with roster size, so the result is consistent and transparent for everyone competing.

Meanwhile, the EWCF will provide US$ 5 million in club incentives for esports clubs that release and enable their professional players to participate in ENC.

In addition, there will also be another US$ 20 million for the ENC Development Fund. This supports official national team partners with logistics, travel, program operations, marketing, and the long-term growth of national team pathways.

The ENC 2026 is set to debut from November 2 to 29 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It will move to a rotating host-city model, bringing nation-based esports to major cities around the world.

The event is to be held every two years. Among confirmed titles for 2026 include Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Trackmania, and DOTA 2.

Gaming

CODE VEIN II now available for consoles, PC

Launch trailer previews characters, combat gameplay, more

Published

January 30, 2026

GadgetMatch

Bandai Namco’s CODE VEIN II is now available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

A new launch trailer has also been revealed, previewing the Soulslike action RPG’s characters, combat gameplay, and more.

Players can experiment with the character creator demo and create their own ideal character for the game.

The demo showcases how in-depth and detailed players can get when creating their own character. It allows for them to experience Photo Mode in the base of MagMell to take pictures of their looks.

Additionally, players who try the demo are allowed to carry their created looks over into the game.

CODE VEIN II is set in the dystopian near future, focusing on the stories of Revenants who must fight against their terrible fate.

In this reality, civilization has collapsed due to an event called the Resurgence. Humanity has only managed to survive, thanks to immortal vampire-like creatures called Revenants.

However, the sudden appearance of Luna Rapacis has turned these Revenants into mindless cannibals.

As a Revenant Hunter, the protagonist is tasked to save the world. Joining him in a journey 100 years into the past is a young girl.

In the process, they will witness the history-changing drama as they try to save the world from ruin.

The game is a combination of exploration action, wherein players can venture through dangerous areas and tackle powerful foes.

Combat against enemies are mainly hack-and-slash, while the protagonist can also explore the world like in the case of riding a motorbike.

Gaming

Xiaomi SU7 Ultra makes Gran Turismo 7 debut

Xiaomi’s premium, high-performing electric sedan joins the GT7 roster

Published

January 29, 2026

GadgetMatch

Xiaomi’s high-performing electric sedan, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra, is now on the acclaimed racing simulation, Gran Turismo 7.

The premium EV debuted as part of the “Update 1.67” patch, marking Xiaomi’s first entry into the storied Gran Turismo franchise.

Players worldwide can now experience the prowess of the high-performance luxury car on the game’s virtual tracks.

The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra represents a new addition to the series’ curated lineup, following an official collaboration announcement last June 2025.

As a benchmark in racing simulations, the Gran Turismo series is recognized for its hyper-realistic driving experience and stringent vehicle selection criteria.

The EV was test-driven on multiple occasions in several locations, including Beijing, the Nürburgring Nordschleife, and the Tsukuba Circuit.

To ensure an authentic experience, Xiaomi EV’s vehicle dynamics performance team traveled to Polyphony Digital’s studio for the final driving experience validation.

In reality, the SU7 Ultra is powered by an in-house developed Dual V8s + V6s Xiaomi Hyper TRi-Motor system.

It delivers 1,548 horsepower and achieves 0-100km/h in 1.98 seconds. The production version previously set a lap time of 7:04.957 at the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

To celebrate the launch, Gran Turismo 7’s developer will host a two-week official lap-time challenge on the title’s historic Monza circuit.