The Phantom Blade Zero walkthrough runs through eight regions in a fixed order, and the important part is not the order of the bosses but which ones you must not kill early. Clear each region before you move on, because Bells let you fast travel back and enemies never respawn — there is no penalty for backtracking, but there is a real penalty for missing a quest item. The campaign takes about 20–25 hours, roughly 30–40 with side content, and 40–55 for a full completion.
The Phantom Blade Zero walkthrough: region route
| Region | Chapters | Story bosses |
|---|---|---|
| Weeping Creek Valley | Against the Flow; Steel and Steam; Crimson Manor | The Frenzied Brute, Axemaster Peng Meng, The Hunt twice |
| Crimson Forest | Illusion of Inanis; Snake's Reflection | Hua Qianxiao the Sword Fanatic, Jing Ye the Outlaw, Stone Hand Iron Fever, Bai Chilian Lady of the Twin Serpents |
| Village of Lu | Heartless Remnant | Zhuo Bi the Gatekeeper, Master Bi Yuan, Master Bi Hai, Yuzan, Iron Fiend and Jade Dancer, Mu Xiaokui |
| Pangzhen | Town of Death; The Heart's Trail; The Four Serpent Houses; The Way Forward | Blaze, Cavalrybane, Wu Xuan and Gu Wanyue |
| Mandate Encampment | Pillars of Kunlun | — |
| Meigu Lake | Sha-Chi Powered Boat; Secrets at the Heart of the Lake; Allure of Vanity; Illusory Pipa | — |
| Mountain of Imprisonment | Whence the Weeping | — |
| Mount Soulrend | The Herald's Illusion; Bloodline Awakening; A Soul's Worth | The campaign ends here |
The prologue fight against Zuo Shang opens the game before Weeping Creek Valley begins.
Four bosses whose kills permanently fail a side quest
These are the fights worth protecting:
| Boss | Do this first |
|---|---|
| Jing Ye, the Outlaw | Finish Yu'er's "Apprentice Healer" story, or you lose "The Healer's Legacy" and the Medicine Case accessory |
| Bai Chilian | Complete "A Healer's Mercy", deliver the Flesh Lily to Yu'er and accept Lanlan's "Secrets of the Baishan Sect", or you lose both "The Healer's Legacy" and "The Last of Baishan" |
| Mu Xiaokui | Complete the "Young Mistress" tale before taking the elevator to her, or you lose her third phase, the Fiend Saws and a key item. The elevator also breaks afterwards, so collect the Wild Oriole Sword from the dock before you go up |
| Yubi, No. 21 Swordfighter Puppet | Finish the current "Secrets of the Baishan Sect" objective first, or "The Last of Baishan" is gone for good |
The optional content worth detouring for
Optional bosses are where the best gear and the best ending live. Hua the Bride waits hidden below the Valley Sha-Chi Tower and holds the Flesh Lily. Zhu Yuan and Bi Feng are optional and both required for the true ending. The Meigu Lake trio of Yan Qiansui, You Loong's rematch and the One-Eyed Archer completes "Master of the Misty Waters". Five Long Pillars are needed for "Phantom and Blade", the four Great Puppets make up "The Four Freed", and the Gold-Masked One appears three times across the game as an optional hunt.
Skipping an optional boss means losing its weapon or Phantom Edge, so check the boss list before you leave a region.
Running each region
Speak to the NPCs, because the map does not mark quests until they are active and the Journal shows red entries in each new region. Interact with book pages and wall writings for free Remnant Dust, and listen for the jingling coins that mark the jade chests.
New Phantom Edges can open obstacles in earlier maps, so revisit old regions after acquiring one.
After the credits
After the credits you can start a New Game Plus run: talk to Inanis, then fast travel from any Bell to the Puppet Cell at the Mountain of Imprisonment. Equipment, progression items, ability training and the Archives carry over, while quests, maps, key items and the remaining days reset. No story content is locked behind NG+ — it is there so you can replay the campaign with late-game weapons and builds.
The New Game Plus page has the full carry-over split, what the late-game weapons change, and the one thing the published sources disagree about.
What decides the ending
What you finished, and what you were carrying when the story checked for it, decides which ending you get. There are eight of them, and the true one has a requirement list you can miss without being told. The endings page has that checklist, both points of no return, and how to recover a run that ended on the wrong one.