Phantom Blade Zero Director Shares Valuable Advice from Expedition 33 Team: “Cut Things and Polish the Rest”
“Soulframe” Liang, the director of Phantom Blade Zero, the highly anticipated action game arriving next year, revealed that he received an important piece of advice from Sandfall Interactive, the studio behind the acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: “Cut things and polish the rest.”
The Importance of Focus and Refinement
In an interview with GamesRadar, Liang explained that he spoke with the French developers shortly after The Game Awards 2025, where Expedition 33 won multiple awards — including the prestigious Game of the Year.
“The pressure is good,” Liang said. “I talked with the team behind Expedition 33, they had a lot of trophies last night. One of the most important and interesting things they told us was that for the last nine months, the most important thing is to delete things. To cut things [from the game] and to polish the rest.”
Quality Over Quantity in Game Development
It might sound like unusual advice, but it makes perfect sense from a developer’s point of view: when time is limited, it’s better to focus on improving the strongest elements, even if it means sacrificing less successful ones, rather than trying to include everything at a lower quality level.
And it seems Liang agrees: “So yeah, it’s a good idea, and I will take that advice,” he commented.
Before we wrap up, remember that Phantom Blade Zero will launch on September 9, 2026, for PS5 and PC, available via Steam and the Epic Games Store.
