Last month, I flew halfway around the world to get an inside look at the development of Phantom Blade Zero. What resulted was five days of the best food I’ve ever eaten, a last-minute trip to the Great Wall of China with a taxi driver zooming through mountain passes as if he was playing Mario Kart, and a fascinatingly deep look at Phantom Blade’s most important aspect: mocap. Phantom Blade harnesses the gorgeously fluid action of Wuxia, a genre of Chinese fiction that focuses on the adventures of larger-than-life martial artists. To that end, nearly every weapon, enemy, and move in the games is fully motion-captured to make the game feel as authentic as possible. It’s a massive undertaking, one lead by a kung fu expert named Master Yang who has been working on Phantom Blade’s mocap since 2018 as the game’s lead combat action director. Yang puts forth an excruciating amount of effort to stay true to the roots of Chinese martial arts, and using those roots to help accentuate Phantom Blade’s style, characters, and tone. Here’s an exclusive glimpse of what it looked like, behind the scenes. |
