S-Game’s Phantom Blade Zero is a certified hit with over four million units sold in just 72 hours and rave reviews. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s perfect, however, but right on time, a new patch is available with performance improvements in “certain areas.”
PC players will find much to like, including the option to remap the “Interact/Talk” function and “significantly” reduced start-up times by no longer compiling ray tracing shaders by default. Of course, those who didn’t have ray tracing on will need to recompile after this update, but it should take less time.
Other notable changes include “adjusted” combat behavior of “certain bosses and enemies.” While no one is specified, Hua, Deadly Bethrothed, received her own separate nerfs on Wayfarer and Pathbreaker. She’ll no longer spam her grab attack on these difficulties, but beware – Hellwalker and 66 Days Mode remain unchanged.
Alongside improvements to weapon hit feedback and updated descriptions, the patch adds two new options: Hit Sound Intensity and Hit Impact Sound Intensity. If either feels too loud (or not loud enough), head into the Audio tab and adjust them to your liking.
Check out the full patch notes below for more details. Phantom Blade Zero is available for PS5 and PC – check out our review of the console version, which we scored a 9.
Phantom Blade Zero — Patch Notes (Version 1.0302256)
New Features
- Added “Hit Sound Intensity” and “Hit Impact Sound Intensity” options to the audio settings.
- [PC] Added support for remapping “Interact / Talk” for both keyboard and controller.
Improvements and Adjustments
- Improved performance in certain areas.
- Adjusted the combat behavior of certain bosses and enemies, along with the functionality of certain environmental mechanisms.
- Reduced the frequency of grab attacks used by Hua, Deadly Betrothed on Wayfarer and Pathbreaker difficulties. Other difficulty settings are unaffected.
- Improved weapon hit feedback and adjusted the volume of certain sound effects and dialogue.
- Updated weapon descriptions, certain skill descriptions, and controller button icons.
- [PC] Updated the shader compilation process to significantly reduce startup times. Ray tracing shaders will no longer be compiled by default at startup. Players who previously had Ray Tracing disabled will need to recompile shaders on their first launch after installing this patch. This is a one-time process and should take only a short time. Players who previously had Ray Tracing enabled can start playing without recompiling shaders. If you enable Ray Tracing in the settings, the required ray tracing shaders will be compiled separately the next time you restart the game.
- [PC] Reduced stuttering that could occur when using a controller connected via Bluetooth.
- [PC] NVIDIA Reflex now works when set to “Auto” with V-Sync enabled.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed issues that could prevent progression under certain conditions.
- Fixed environmental issues that could cause the player character to become stuck.
- Fixed various issues with cutscenes and visuals.
- Fixed several combat-related issues.
- Fixed an issue that caused character hair to render incorrectly on certain AMD graphics cards with specific driver versions.
