The platinum trophy on PlayStation has always been the peak of achievement hunting, giving you an extra incentive to hunt down those last few collectibles or to beat the game on the hardest difficulty. However, in many cases, you have to replay the game several times or sit through those extra-hard modes just to get the trophy, but Phantom Blade Zero understands how frustrating that can be and is choosing a much more straightforward path that more developers should follow.
Despite having four difficulty modes, one including permanent death, you will be able to get platinum regardless of how hard you make the experience. That means if you boot up Phantom Blade Zero and decide you want a more casual style of gameplay, then there is nothing stopping you from seeing all the content and getting all the achievements in a single playthrough on the lowest difficulty. By removing the need for multiple runs or to play in the perma-death mode, the devs are creating a healthier relationship with challenge, where you get to dictate the challenge of the kungfupunk world, without risking any lost achievements.
Phantom Blade Zero’s Platinum Can Be Unlocked On Any Difficulty
The ARPG landscape has grown a lot in the past few years, but regardless of whether the game is more of a soulslike or hack-n-slash, they often require a large commitment from the player to acquire the coveted platinum trophy. Games like Black Myth Wukong, Sekiro, and Ninja Gaiden 4 force you to replay the game several times over for an extra ending or set of items, and in the latter case, you have to push through the hardest difficulties just to tick off another achievement, something which is a major point of frustration for even diehard trophy hunters.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Enter Phantom Blade Zero, one of the most anticipated games of the year and a really heavy-hitter when it comes to the action-RPG world. There were a lot of questions regarding the game’s difficulty, as many people assumed it was akin to a soulslike in challenge, but it is far more like a traditional ARPG in terms of gameplay, whilst still being tough enough to test your skills on the battlefield. Interestingly though, there are lots of QoL additions that make it feel much more player-friendly, one of which is the lack of difficulty requirement for the platinum trophy.
If you boot up Phantom Blade Zero and decide you want a more casual style of gameplay, then there is nothing stopping you from seeing all the content and getting all the achievements in a single playthrough on the lowest difficulty.
There are four different modes to choose between, each increasing the challenge slightly from the last, but at no point does that initial decision stop you from getting 100% in your first playthrough. You can access all of the content, try all the weapons, fight all the bosses, and then if you decide you enjoyed it enough and want a tougher run, you are more than welcome to bump the difficulty up. This inclusion feels very much in line with a lot of the other features the game has that streamline or outright remove a lot of annoying elements from other ARPGs, to keep the focus on the fighting and the combat from start to finish.
Things like maxing out a weapon become a lot more feasible when you can reforge materials; bigger fights feel less menacing when you can lose in phase two and come back to it straight away, and now with the achievements being just a little easier to access, it makes many other games in the genre look silly by comparison when they demand so much more for the same reward. All of those elements put together allow Phantom Blade Zero to really lean into that concept of a game made by gamers who are well aware of what players like and don’t like, and as a result, the dev team has included as many great components as possible, whilst stripping the more contentious ones without losing their overarching vision.
Phantom Blade Zero’s Platinum Trophy Rewards Dedication, Not Repetition
When you think about achievements in video games, the definition itself has to be respected. They are a marker of your success and progress within a game and serve as a reminder of all the challenges you have overcome on your journey, and in Phantom Blade Zero, we can clearly see that there are plenty of additional trophies to hunt outside of the main story. The game has you finding collectibles and completing side quests, and if you are willing to really dig into the world and the content within it, I think you should be rewarded with the platinum, regardless of what difficulty you play on or whether you want to play through the whole game again.
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A still from a Phantom Blade Zero trailer showing a close-up of a pale woman. Image via S-GAME -
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However, there is something to be said about the prestige of acquiring a platinum achievement. In the past, getting a platinum meant you had invested a lot of time into a game, beaten it on the highest difficulty, and even seen the end credits several times over in the case of games like Elden Ring or Dark Souls. At the same time, there are plenty of platinum trophies that simply ask that you play through and finish the game, even if it means a three-hour playthrough rather than a 300-hour one. So, I do see the argument that platinum achievements should represent overcoming some higher hurdle, yet when you actually look at what some of these achievements ask for, I think it is almost always better for a platinum to represent your experience in a single playthrough, rather than a tedious replay.
You may storm through to the end after doing literally every quest, killing every enemy and boss, and then realize you need to replay a dozen hours just to get the second ending, and thus the platinum with it. Phantom Blade Zero erases that pressure, letting you enjoy the story and the cinematic fights at your pace but never treating you differently based on how good of a gamer you are. If you want the threat of perma-death, then the devs say good luck, but they know that millions of others are happy with things being less stressful, so they are giving everyone the same opportunity to clear all the achievements at once, something that I do hope other games follow in the future.
Phantom Blade Zero
9/10
- Released
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October 29, 2026
- Developer(s)
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S-Game
- Publisher(s)
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S-Game
