S-Game Deploys First Phantom Blade Zero Patch To Tweak Performance and Difficulty, While Ultra+ Mod Brings Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion and Path Tracing Improvements

S-Game really knocked it out of the park with Phantom Blade Zero, and the game's high quality, which deserves, in my opinion, a perfect 10/10 score, was rewarded with 4 million sales in 72 hours of availability. However, the Chinese development studio isn't resting on its laurels and has deployed the first post-launch patch today on the WeGame Chinese gaming platform ahead of its launch on Steam and PlayStation 5 worldwide.

As reported on the Phantom Blade Zero subreddit, the November 3 patch adds new features and fixes based on current player feedback. The most notable of these new features are two new audio settings: Hit SFX Intensity and Hit Impact SFX Intensity. These settings will make it easier for players to understand when they have been hit or when they have blocked or parried an attack, which isn't always easy during the game's frantic combat encounters. The second major feature addition is the ability to remap the Interact button on both keyboard and controller, a welcome quality-of-life improvement.

The first Phantom Blade Zero patch also brings notable optimizations and adjustments, which include performance improvements in certain areas and optimized shader compilation to significantly reduce game startup times. Before the patch, the game compiled ray tracing shaders by default, but with the patch, they will be compiled separately after restarting the game with ray tracing enabled.

Lastly, the patch also makes some difficulty adjustments by changing the behavior of certain bosses, enemies, and environmental hazards, singling out Hua, Deadly Betrothed's grab attacks, whose frequency has been reduced on Wayfarer and Pathbreaker difficulties. Hellwalker and 66-Days difficulties have been left untouched, leaving it to mods to replicate a soulslike experience.

Ultra+ Mod Introduces 4K Textures and Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion

Looking at the notes for Phantom Blade Zero's first update, there's plenty to be excited about, but those who wish to bring the game's stunning visuals to the next level now have the option of doing so with the Ultra+ mod.

"Ultra+ for Phantom Blade Zero fixes many of the base game’s graphical issues, especially with path tracing. It reduces noise and boiling, keeps more of the world dynamic, in ray tracing and in shadows, and stops the game from constantly overwriting graphics CVars. The HDNatureTextures add-on replaces rock, cliff and nature textures with sharper 4K versions," reads the mod's description on its official website.

Its list of features is impressive enough, ranging from improved path tracing to extended draw distance, more geometry staying visible with ray tracing and path tracing, ray-traced ambient occlusion and optional 4K textures, and with full control over many of these, Ultra+ is setting out to be the most impressive visual overhaul mod of the game's launch window.

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