Kung Fu'd for thought.
Pre-loads are live for Phantom Blade Zero, the debut action game from Chinese developer S-Game. Alongside news of the pre-load, the studio revealed the final set of PC requirements, including how much space the game is going to take up on your drive.
Once installed, Phantom Blade Zero will occupy a chonky 145GB of your precious storage space. However, to pre-load the game, you're going to need over double that - 300GB, seemingly for the decryption and decompression process. The developer explained in a Steam blog post that "temporary files and the complete game files must coexist during the unlock process". You'll get back the extra space once the game is installed, of course.
While a game requiring extra space for these operations is not uncommon, the fact Phantom Blade Zero's install size is already so large makes needing to free up double that ludicrous. Phantom Blade Zero also requires an SSD drive, and seeing as the global gen-AI-driven memory and storage shortages have made them unattainable to many, you're not likely to buy a new drive just to accommodate a single game.
High as they may be, those storage space requirements aren't likely to deter players from buying a copy. Indeed, the game is already predicted to be among the year's biggest hits, having already sold over 500,000 copies on Steam alone, according to some estimates.
Eurogamer reviewed Phantom Blade Zero. In her review, Emma Kent was critical of the game's underwhelming boss flights and its general lack of polish, which she said mar Phantom Blade Zero's otherwise fluid and cinematic kung fu-style action.
Phantom Blade Zero arrives 29th October on PC and PS5.
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