Phantom Blade Zero Reviews Are In: 91 on OpenCritic and 88 on Metacritic Before Its 29 October Launch

Phantom Blade Zero's review embargo lifted at midnight UTC on 26 October, and the early consensus is very strong: OpenCritic lists a 91 Top Critic Average with 100% of critics recommending it, while Metacritic shows an 88 Metascore from 31 reviews. S-GAME's action RPG unlocks on PC and PS5 three days later, at 02:00 UTC on 29 October.

This piece is built from the two aggregators (both read at about 07:40 UTC on 26 October), the Steam store, and full reviews from IGN, VGC and the critic blurbs on OpenCritic. AFK Journal has not played the game; the opinions below belong to the outlets named.

What are Phantom Blade Zero's review scores?

The Metascore has already moved. Threads on r/playstation and r/PhantomBladeZero posted minutes after the embargo quoted a 91; by the morning it read 88 with 31 reviews counted. Both aggregators will keep shifting a little as late reviews land.

What do critics praise, and what do they criticise?

Combat and boss fights carry almost every review. IGN's Travis Northup calls it "one of the best action games I've played in a long time" after about 50 hours on PC, and says the hardest difficulty felt tuned "exactly right". VGC's Dave Aubrey credits S-GAME with "some of the fastest, most engaging combat of any action game", and singles out the bosses, each of which attacks in its own way.

The story is the most common complaint. IGN describes a convoluted plot with a needlessly complex timeline, VGC finds the story and characters "bland, generic, and uninteresting", and Checkpoint Gaming's 8/10 cites convoluted storytelling and frustrating navigation. Gameblog's 9/10 adds that some bosses bring badly handled difficulty spikes.

Performance is the other caveat. IGN says its review build ran far more consistently than the preview version, but one area of one map had a consistently poor frame rate, and it expects a patch at or shortly after launch. GamingBolt and Press Start both mention minor technical blemishes without letting them dent a 9/10.

How does it compare with October's other big releases?

A 91 Top Critic Average is higher than any game AFK Journal has reviewed this month. The table uses the OpenCritic figure we recorded on the day each review was written, so later reviews may have moved them slightly. The closest action RPG comparisons are Final Fantasy Resonance at 84.88 and Valor Mortis at 80.35.

Interest on PC was already high before the scores: Phantom Blade Zero sat sixth in Steam's most-wishlisted upcoming games when we checked on the morning of 26 October, just behind Deadlock, Light No Fire, Dear Passengers, Fable and Blight: Survival.

When can you play it, and what should you check first?

The game unlocks at 02:00 UTC on 29 October: 7pm PT and 10pm ET on 28 October, or 2am in the UK. It costs $59.99 on Steam (Windows only), and PS5 is its only console for at least 12 months. Our release time, preload and PC requirements guide has the unlock time in nine time zones and the official minimum and recommended specs; Valve had not given it a Steam Deck rating when we checked on 25 October.

If you play on PC and are sensitive to frame drops, IGN's warning about a patch is the practical takeaway: read the day-one patch notes before deciding whether to start straight away.

What we don't know yet

Player opinion is the missing half. Steam reviews and Metacritic user scores only open at launch, and OpenCritic's player rating needs 20 ratings before it appears. AFK Journal's critics-versus-players review will follow once there are enough of both to measure.