Phantom Blade Zero bosses might normally have “Soulslike elements,” but on harder difficulties, their AI borrows from fighting games: “He will analyze the situation”

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Qiwei Liang, the director of Phantom Blade Zero, has repeatedly stated his game isn’t a ‘Soulslike,’ even though it might be confusing until players experience it. To further differentiate it from that popular genre – which Liang feels is oversaturated – he recently explained that some of the game’s bosses are designed with inspiration from fighting games.

In a recent interview with PC Gamer Magazine, game designer Liang discussed how the Huangxing boss changes when the game is played on the more challenging ‘Hellwalker’ difficulty. He explained that on the normal setting, Huangxing fights like many ‘Souls-like’ games – he has predictable attack patterns that players can learn with practice. It’s a familiar cycle of learning through repeated attempts, similar to the ‘die, die, die, learn, win’ approach common in those games.

However, when the game is set to its hardest difficulty, things change significantly,” Liang explains, and this is where it gets really creative. The developer working on the toughest boss fight actually tried to use an idea from fighting games and apply it to how the boss behaves.

On the hardest difficulty, Huangxing behaves like a smart fighting game opponent. He assesses each situation to see if he has the upper hand, and then chooses his attacks accordingly. Liang explains that Huangxing has a system where a successful hit leads to a combo, but a miss will cause him to switch tactics. Essentially, he learns from each attack to decide what to do next.

Unlike typical Soulslike games where memorizing enemy attacks is key, you can’t rely on that here. Huangxing is unpredictable and might do the opposite of what you anticipate.

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2025-09-21 16:09