What We’ve Played at Gamescom, Day Four: Phantom Blade Zero, Little Nightmares III, And More

By Elijah Gonzalez | August 23, 2025 | 8:45pm

Video Games Features Gamescom

Despite a week of running around Gamescom’s show floor, there’s still plenty more to highlight, and today we played plenty of action games, horror experiences, and more. Let’s run down what we saw on day 4.

Phantom Blade Zero

gamescom

As a big fan of martial arts movies, the first trailer for Phantom Blade Zero had me hooting and hollering at its flashy, acrobatic combat. After playing it for an hour, I can confirm that its animation work does, in fact, look very cool in-game, with each weapon bringing to life stylish sequences that would fit nicely in a Shaw Brothers film. However, while the action was visually slick, especially when it came to the demo’s boss, who coordinated an army of puppets like the murderous equivalent of synchronized swimmers, I have more mixed feelings about how it actually plays. While it looks like a soulslike at first blush, with a camera that locks on a single opponent and an estus flask equivalent, I don’t know that I would call it one of those, in large part because it isn’t trying to be particularly difficult. For instance, enemies don’t respawn when you kill them, a quirk that’s my least favorite part of this experience so far, as it makes working through each area feel frictionless; foes respawn so liberally in soulslikes because this encourages you to actually learn enemy patterns instead of just stumbling through encounters.

When it comes to the fights themselves, I’m generally more positive, even if there are still some issues here. Thankfully, the action is responsive, letting you bring out the protagonist’s graceful movements. There’s a parry which refills your posture, a dodge needed against unparryable attacks, and light and heavy strikes that can be chained to perform combos. There are also special attacks that consume resources, and you’re encouraged to switch between primary and secondary weapons on the fly to restore stamina. While the flow of combat is solid and it’s very satisfying to land a timely parry on a blue-colored attack to score a big opening, sometimes there’s so much going on with these attack animations that the action feels somewhat disconnected from your input; which of the 15 sword slashes I just did were attached each to specific button press? There’s just a lot of visual noise, making it hard to tell crucial details like when you actually nailed a parryk. Additionally, all of the different combos sort of run together, and I had a hard time telling what distinguished each. Still, its style was so abundant and the action was fast-paced enough to largely mask these problems.

Little Nightmares III

With Tarsier Studios selling the rights of their Little Nightmares series to Bandai Namco, the third game in the series is getting a fresh pair of eyes, with Supermassive Games (Until Dawn, etc.), taking over. Luckily, it seems just as cute-creepy as the last, having you play as lost children in a world full of grotesque adults eager to kill you. While I only saw a tiny slice of its horrors, its puzzle platforming brought me through carnival from hell, where you used apples and tickets to distract its rabid patrons. If there’s a main difference compared to its predecessors, it’s the inclusion of co-op that lets players share the scares alongside a buddy or AI companion. As for its characters, you either control Alone, who wields a wrench, or Low, who uses a bow. Beyond that, it very much maintains the solid puzzle solving and unsettling Burton-esque ambiance of the previous entries, setting up another odd journey. While I’m hoping for some performance improvements before launch, as the PS5 build I played had some hitching, hopefully this will get cleaned up ahead of its October 10 release.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree

Games trying to imitate Hades and its lightning fast combat have their work cut out for them, but Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree seems capable of approaching that level. Here, you choose two characters out of a sizable lineup as you pass through a procession of randomized combat arenas in the hopes of reaching the end and saving Shinju village. Just like in Hades, you choose which path to follow after each fight, giving you influence over which type of boon you’ll earn after the next battle. And while it’s also an isometric action game based around a dash, it has unique nuances that make it seem like its own type of high-skill ceiling action game.

As previously mentioned, you control a duo, with one acting as the lead who can slash and dash, and the other handling support duties with a pair of spells on cooldown. Where things get particularly frantic is that you can actually manually control your second character with the right stick, which matters because they can also take damage—you don’t have to take manual control because they’ll move on their own, but positioning may matter in certain circumstances. On top of this interesting mechanic that adds a lot of potential complexity, each playable character has different movesets with their own particulars. The one I played, Towa, comes with an involved stance switch mechanic where she needs to basically “reload” her swords by switching between two blades with different attack types, one of which leaves a lingering whirlwind on screen even after you’ve gone back to the other blade. Strikes and dashes are just as snappy as you’d like them to be, which combines nicely with the previously mentioned specifics. It’s all further sold by punchy animation and a beautiful art style that taps into Japanese mythology. The best roguelikes give ample room to improve your skills, and Towa’s seemingly nuanced systems give much to master.

Gimmiko

Roguelikes! Are you sick of them yet? Luckily, as the name would imply, Gimmiko is doing its own thing compared to the rest of the genre, as embodied by its quirky sense of humor and dice-based antics. Basically, this is a run-based game where you build an arsenal d4s, d5s, and d6. You control a weird little character who throws said dice at yokai and monsters, dealing damage on hit, and then activating an ability based on which number it lands on. Over the course of a playthrough, you buy new dice and skills that pair with specific rolls, as you dodge around groups of enemies by jumping on heads and sometimes hopping on your dice themselves. Where things get funky is that you can pinball anything you throw off walls and different enemies to hit foes multiple times. It’s a very unique approach to the space, and based on the Steam page, it seems there are even more surprises in store (somehow including what looks like a first-person dungeon crawling sequence).

Crimson Desert

Crimson Desert is an open world action game with a surprisingly robust combat system that will have you combining basically every button on your controller. Beyond the obligatory light attack, heavy attack, blocks, parries, and rolls, you can imbue your weapons with magic, shoot wind blasts at the ground to propel yourself upward, perform several types of charged strikes, and do a whole bunch of wrestling moves, like airplane spins, RKOs, and more. There’s a lot going on, and while I wish the standard cronies I faced were a bit tougher and that the boss I battled wasn’t so tanky, I was pleased by the degree of fussy little complexities at work here. Oh, and I have no idea how the open world works—the demo didn’t grant access to this, so I spent like half an hour killing dudes during a setpiece siege. If this broader backdrop is as odd and busting at the seams as its action gameplay, then it might be a sight to behold.

Drowned Lake

Drowned Lake is a bit like you took that part in Silent Hill 2 where you cross Toluca Lake on a boat and made it into an entire game; that is to say, this is a psychological horror experience about fishing for strange items and memories. You sail through a flooded town from a top-down perspective, taking risks while angling for objects that help you progress, like a key to a cemetery. Unfortunately, you’re also being pursued by something in the water, with each failed skill check putting you in greater danger. The game features several different characters, each with their own stories, and while I only saw the very beginning of one protagonist’s path, the prose was solid enough to make me think this horror story could go places.

Elijah Gonzalez is an associate editor for Endless Mode. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.