Soulframe Liang

Overview

Soulframe Liang (born Liang Qiwei, 梁其伟) is the founder, CEO, and creative director of S-GAME and the creator of the Phantom Blade series. Educated at both Tsinghua University and Yale University in architecture, Liang pivoted to game development and has been the driving creative force behind every title in the franchise. He personally oversees combat design, narrative writing, and art direction for Phantom Blade Zero.

Education and background

Liang attended Tsinghua University, one of China's top two academic institutions, where he began developing games during his final undergraduate years. He went on to earn a master's degree in architecture from Yale University, where he developed a deep understanding of spatial design, structural composition, and environmental storytelling. While at Yale, he also served as a teaching assistant for interactive architecture, a field he found closely aligned with game development.

After graduating from Yale, Liang rejected a job offer from a New York-based architecture firm, choosing instead to return to China and pursue game development full-time. His architectural training did not lead to a conventional career in building design; instead, it became the foundation for his approach to game world creation. The skills he developed. Thinking about how people move through spaces, how light and structure create mood, how a building tells a story through its design. Translate directly into level design and environmental art direction.

While at Yale, Liang was already developing games in his spare time. His passion for wuxia fiction and martial arts films drove him to create the Rainblood series, a set of Flash-based action games that attracted a dedicated following in China's indie gaming community. These games were small in scope but ambitious in their combat design, demonstrating the martial arts authenticity that would become S-GAME's defining characteristic.

The 'Soulframe' name

Liang created his online nickname 'Soulframe' during high school, combining elements he found 'cool and not-so-usual, something fantasy and something solid.' He has used this handle for approximately 15 years and trademarked it in China. The name has become inseparable from his professional identity in the gaming industry.

When Digital Extremes announced a Warframe sequel called Soulframe in 2022, they attempted to purchase Liang's trademark through Tencent as an intermediary. Liang declined, stating simply: 'No, I'm not selling.' The incident highlighted the depth of Liang's attachment to the identity he had built over more than a decade.

The Rainblood origins

The Rainblood games (2009-2011) were essentially solo projects. Liang handled programming, art, design, and writing himself, with minimal outside help. The games were distributed through Chinese Flash game portals and gained attention for their unusually fluid combat systems and dark, atmospheric storytelling. For a Flash game, Rainblood offered a level of combat depth that rivaled dedicated action games on other platforms.

The success of the Rainblood games demonstrated that there was an audience for the kind of martial arts action game that Liang wanted to make, and provided the creative foundation for what would eventually become the Phantom Blade franchise and S-GAME as a formal studio.

Founding S-GAME

In 2011, Liang registered S-GAME, starting with a four-person team. The studio has since grown to over 140 developers across four offices. Liang deliberately avoids rapid scaling, preferring to maintain creative control and quality over headcount growth. His stated target pace is one major title every four to five years, prioritizing quality and focus over frequency.

Creative philosophy

Liang's directorial philosophy centers on authenticity over spectacle. In interviews, he has consistently argued that martial arts in games should feel grounded in real technique rather than relying on exaggerated fantasy. This does not mean Phantom Blade Zero is realistic (the game features supernatural abilities and impossible feats) but the foundation of every combat animation, every weapon moveset, and every fighting style is rooted in a real martial discipline.

He has described his approach as 'starting from the real and then pushing into the fantastic.' A sword technique in the game begins as a real kenjutsu or jianfa movement, captured from a practitioner who actually knows the form, and is then enhanced with visual effects, speed adjustments, and impact exaggeration to make it feel powerful in a game context. The base movement is always real, even when the final result is clearly superhuman.

Liang has described Phantom Blade Zero as 'a Chinese version of John Wick,' centering on underground hierarchies and a violent protagonist's displacement. He explicitly rejects the 'Soulslike' label despite acknowledging layered, three-dimensional space design resembling modern action RPG environments. The distinction, in his words, is 'stagecraft without gatekeeping difficulty.'

This philosophy extends to narrative design. Liang prefers stories about personal stakes over world-ending threats. Soul's story is about survival, betrayal, and revenge. Human-scale problems that do not require saving the universe. He has cited Gu Long's wuxia novels (known for their emphasis on character psychology over epic battles) as a primary narrative influence. Liang describes emotional restraint in his storytelling where 'love isn't declared loudly; it's suggested through small gestures.'

Architecture in game design

Liang's architectural background is visible throughout Phantom Blade Zero's environmental design. Areas like Pang Town demonstrate a spatial complexity that goes beyond typical game level design. The verticality, the interconnected pathways, the way sightlines are controlled to reveal or conceal information. These are architectural decisions applied to game spaces.

In developer commentary, Liang has described his level design process as architectural practice applied to interactive spaces. He thinks about flow, circulation, compression and expansion of spaces, and the emotional impact of spatial transitions. All concepts from architecture school. The result is environments in Phantom Blade Zero that feel designed rather than assembled, with a coherence and intentionality that reflects a trained spatial designer's eye.

Personal reflections

Liang has spoken openly about the personal toll of game development, acknowledging the work as 'tiring, pressure-filled' with minimal sleep. Yet he describes game creation as fulfilling rather than labor, and emphasizes that independence protects creativity through publishing, capital, and organizational control. Preventing quarterly earnings pressure from dictating creative decisions.

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