Side Quests and Branching Story

Phantom Blade Zero's side quests are not self-contained diversions. Choices made in the game's side content feed back into the main story and ultimately drive which of eight distinct endings the campaign reaches. The design goal, in S-Game's own framing, is that who Soul is depends on what the player does.

How the Side Quests Feed the Main Story

• Side quests explore the stories of other characters around Soul, rather than being throwaway errands.

• Choices made during those side quests ripple into the main storyline, shifting dialogue, outcomes, and who is alive by the finale.

• Acting with honor has a bigger macroscopic impact. It is not a numerical honor meter, but the sum of the player's decisions produces a larger shift when those decisions are honorable.

Xia as a Through-Line

The game's wuxia framing names the underlying concept explicitly. 'Wu' is martial skill and 'Xia' is inner righteousness. Side quests are where the player's Xia is shaped, and that Xia is what tilts the main plot's revenge-and-love arc in one direction or another.

Eight Endings

The campaign has eight different endings. Which one triggers depends on the accumulated outcomes of the side quests the player has completed, rather than on a single late-game decision. That means early-game side content matters even if the branching is not obvious when the choice is made.

No Honor Meter

Despite comparisons in the press, Phantom Blade Zero does not use a Red Dead Redemption 2 style numeric honor system. The developers have been explicit that there is no visible meter; instead the cumulative shape of the player's actions is what the engine tracks.

Scope

S-Game has publicly estimated roughly 30 hours of main-story content plus around 20 hours of side content, for a total of approximately 50 hours depending on how much side material the player pursues.