Phantom Blade Zero’s producer believes authentic cultural themes are important for games and shouldn’t be diluted for a global audience.
Liang Qiwei (known as Soulframe), who’s also the CEO of developer S-Game, discussed the topic with Japanese site 4Gamer at this year’s Tokyo Game Show (thanks Automaton).
The forthcoming action game has a “kung-fu punk” aesthetic, described as “using kung-fu and martial arts as the core and clothing it in popular culture”.
Further, Qiwei suggested that having an obscure theme is part of the appeal for a global audience, comparing the game with Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong that’s achieved enormous success.
“If we look at recent titles, Black Myth: Wukong had a much higher hurdle to overcome than our game does in terms of culture as it’s completely based on a classic Chinese work of literature,” said Qiwei.
“So [Game Science] may encounter this problem of players not understanding the cultural background. But in my opinion, the quality and playing experience of a game are its core. If you can achieve high quality and an entertaining playing experience, I think that a difficult theme can actually be an advantage, not a disadvantage. If your game is entertaining, players will perceive unfamiliar themes as something fresh.”