Phantom Blade Zero interview: Liang Qiwei on a 30-hour run and the three layers of kung fu punk

With Phantom Blade Zero due on October 29, producer Liang Qiwei said in an interview at a closed-door preview in Beijing that a skilled run takes about 25 to 30 hours. He described the game as a three-layer pyramid, with a traditional ARPG base of maps, side quests and objectives, a middle layer borrowing some Souls-like vertical level design, and the combat shown in trailers on top. He said combat rewards aggression, with roughly 70 percent of a boss's qi depletion coming from combos and only about 30 percent from defensive parries, and that a mainline-only run yields about 50 to 60 percent of resources.