Phantom Blade Zero Gameplay Shows The Hunt’s Four-Axe Boss Fight

A boss built around timing

The Hunt turns Phantom Blade Zero’s boss fights into a test of timing. His quick strikes invite parries, but his evasive moves can hide a sudden attack, forcing players to read what he’s doing rather than rely on a fixed rhythm. IGN’s new gameplay shows the encounter, building on his appearance in the opening, where he fights Soul aboard a moving cart. That earlier sequence hinted at a persistent foe; the full battle gives him room to press the advantage.

That distinction matters in a boss fight. A sequence of fast attacks can train a player to parry on instinct, while a sudden dodge or change in position can make that same instinct costly. The Hunt’s moves appear designed to keep those responses in tension: his speed creates pressure, and his evasions make it harder to assume the next opening will arrive where expected. The footage offers a look at that challenge, though it can’t show how forgiving the timing is during play.

This is more significant than it looks. A boss can have an elaborate design and still feel repetitive if its attacks don’t ask the player to make different decisions. The Hunt’s mix of direct pressure and evasive movement gives the encounter a clearer identity, at least in the footage shown. The test will be whether those moves remain readable when the fight gets hectic.

Keeping distance isn’t enough

The Hunt swings two one-handed axes joined by a chain. He can flip away, then send an axe back toward Soul, making distance no guarantee of safety. His rapid attacks chip away at health, while their pace also creates openings for a well-timed parry. That combination gives the exchange a sharp risk-and-reward shape: a player who stays back may avoid one part of the pressure, but still has to account for the returning weapon.

Chain weapons also change how a player reads space. An attack doesn’t necessarily end when the boss moves away, and a retreat can be part of the threat rather than a pause in it. Here’s the thing: the footage makes positioning look like only one part of the problem. Players will also need to watch the attack’s path and decide whether to parry, evade, or wait for a safer opening.

That’s a familiar challenge in action games, where a boss’s movement can be as important as the damage it deals. If you’re working through a fight like this, the useful question isn’t simply whether you can get close. It’s whether you can tell when the Hunt’s movement is creating an opportunity and when it’s setting up another strike. A brief hesitation may be safer than chasing him into an attack.

And yet, a busy moveset can become noise if the animations don’t communicate what’s coming. The gameplay gives viewers a sense of the Hunt’s pace, but it doesn’t settle how clearly each move signals its follow-up. That will shape whether the encounter feels demanding in a satisfying way or merely punishing. A narrow distinction, but an important one.

A second phase with four axes

The fight escalates when The Hunt sprouts two extra arms, each carrying another axe. The transformation is grotesque, though its heavy-metal look gives the reveal a strange appeal. The footage also shows Blood-Steel Form, an alternate appearance for Soul included with the Deluxe Edition.

More weapons suggest a more complicated threat, but visual escalation alone doesn’t tell us how the fight changes. The added axes could make it harder to track attack angles, or they could signal a new rhythm that players can learn. The footage presents the transformation as a shift in spectacle and danger; it leaves the details of that shift for players to discover.

(And this is the part most people overlook.) A second phase can do more than raise the difficulty. It can ask players to revise the rules they’ve learned, especially if earlier habits around parrying or keeping distance stop working as well. That makes the extra arms potentially meaningful as a combat change, not just a striking reveal. Whether the phase delivers on that potential depends on how its attacks behave.

The visual design is deliberately excessive. Four axes turn an already unusual weapon setup into something hard to ignore, and the transformation gives the encounter a distinct midpoint. A memorable image, certainly.

What the encounter says about the wider game

Phantom Blade Zero arrives on PS5 and PC on October 29. The game has at least 50 bosses, each unlocking a unique weapon: one of 30 main weapons or 20 secondary weapons. More details cover other enemies and S-Game’s approach to keeping encounters varied. With that many bosses, the Hunt’s shifting attack patterns offer a glimpse of the variety players can expect.

That number sets a high bar. A large boss roster can promise a steady supply of new challenges, but the count by itself says little about how distinct those challenges will feel. The Hunt gives one example of variation through weapon behavior, movement, and a phase change. The broader question is whether other encounters will ask players to adapt in similarly clear ways.

The weapon rewards add another layer to that structure. Each boss unlocking a unique weapon gives the fights a concrete payoff, and the split between main and secondary weapons suggests different kinds of rewards. The source doesn’t explain how those weapons fit into progression or how much they change a player’s options, so the footage can’t answer that. Still, tying bosses to unique equipment gives the encounters a purpose beyond simply blocking the next stretch of the game.

For now, The Hunt is a useful sample rather than proof that every boss will feel different. His chain-linked axes, evasive movement, and extra-armed second phase give the fight a strong identity in the material shown. The challenge for the full game will be sustaining that level of distinction across at least 50 encounters. If it can, the roster could become one of the game’s defining strengths. If not, the headline number won’t carry much weight.