Phantom Blade Zero has been voted the best new game of October in PlayStation's monthly Players' Choice poll. PlayStation announced the result yesterday on the PlayStation Blog, where O'Dell Harmon Jr. wrote, "Your votes have spoken: Phantom Blade Zero wins Players' Choice for October. Congrats to S-Game!" Check out the official post down below:
The October Players' Choice Field
PlayStation described October as a month filled with releases ranging from high octane racing to covert missions. Along with Phantom Blade Zero, the PlayStation Blog called out several other big new releases from the month:
- Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
- Silver Pines
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4
- Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve
PlayStation has also already turned to the next poll, asking readers which games they have been playing in November and what they expect to win this month.
How Players' Choice Works
At the end of every month, the PlayStation Blog opens a poll where readers vote for the best new game released that month. Once the poll closes, PlayStation counts the votes and announces the winner on its social channels and on the blog. The PlayStation Blog editorial team seeds each poll with a list of the month's most noteworthy releases.
There is no set voting criteria. PlayStation asks voters to pick the 1 new release they would recommend to a friend that month. Re-released games do not qualify, but remakes do. PlayStation defines remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
About Phantom Blade Zero
Phantom Blade Zero comes from S-GAME, and it launched on October 28 for PlayStation 5 and PC. The game follows Soul, a warrior who is framed for murdering his master. He suffers a wound to the heart that leaves him with just 66 days to live, and he roams the Wulin, hunted and alone, trying to unravel a conspiracy that has taken hold of the martial world.
Players explore the Phantom World, where shifting light and shadow hide secrets and hidden passages and mechanisms lead to new areas and stories. Combat is rooted in traditional martial arts, with combos that S-GAME calls easy to learn and rewarding to master, built around dodging, deflecting, countering and striking. Soul can master over 30 primary weapons and more than 20 Phantom Edges, which are taken from fallen enemies.
S-GAME calls the game's style "kungfupunk," a blend of golden age wuxia cinema and punk fantasy that mixes martial arts, mechanical prosthetics, crumbling industrial ruins, traditional Chinese aesthetics and modern rock music. Martial arts choreographers from the golden age of wuxia cinema worked with the team using motion capture, and S-GAME says every strike and stance in the game is based on real martial techniques.
On Steam, the standard edition is priced at $59.99, and the PC version carries a Metacritic score of 88. A Digital Deluxe upgrade adds 2 exclusive outfits, Wulin Legend and Blood-Steel Form, plus an in-game digital art book and digital soundtrack.
More PlayStation News This Week
The Players' Choice result went up alongside several other PlayStation Blog posts. Vindictus: Defying Fate is coming to PS5 next year, and the Marathon Symbiosis update launches on December 8 with new PvE and PvP modes and new weapons. PlayStation Plus Game Catalog members are getting Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, Atomfall and Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake this month.
Grand Theft Auto VI can also be pre-loaded on PS5 now, as covered in GTA 6 Now Available To Pre-Load On PS5 And Xbox Ahead Of November 19 Release. It releases on November 19, which makes it 1 of the new games eligible for November's Players' Choice poll. PlayStation's launch trailer for Phantom Blade Zero is below:
Did you vote for Phantom Blade Zero as October's best new game, or did another release from the month get your vote?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.