What is kungfupunk? The kung fu punk style of Phantom Blade Zero
Kungfupunk, often written “kung fu punk”, is S-GAME’s own name for the style of Phantom Blade Zero: in the studio’s words, a world “where traditional Kungfu collides with steampunk machinery and body modification”. Official State of Play gameplay deep dive, 6:08
It names the game’s art direction and setting, not a separate genre with its own rules: S-GAME calls it an “art direction” and an “aesthetic”, while director Soulframe Liang describes the game itself as a “kung fu action game”. Official PlayStation Blog, 24 May 2023, and the Steam page; Press-reported PC Gamer, August 2025
| What it is | S-GAME’s name for the game’s art direction and aesthetic. Official PlayStation Blog, 2023; Steam page |
|---|---|
| Who coined it | Soulframe Liang, the game’s creator and director, introduced the name in his May 2023 announcement post, in the studio’s voice: “We call this overall art direction ‘Kungfupunk’.” A Chinese preview writer calls it his original concept. Official PlayStation Blog, 24 May 2023; Press-reported Zhihu Games writer, reposted on gcores, 2026 |
| What it mixes | Kung fu and wuxia cinema with steampunk machinery, mechanical prosthetics, industrial ruins, the occult and modern rock music. Official Steam page; PlayStation Blog, 2023 |
| Chinese name |  Official Chinese name: 功夫朋克 on the Chinese Steam page and the official Chinese site. Official Steam (Simplified Chinese); official site |
| Spelling | One word, “kungfupunk”, in official English text; press also writes “kung fu punk” and “Kung Fu-punk”. Official Steam page; Press-reported GosuGamers, GamingBible |
What does kungfupunk mean?
The clearest official definition is spoken in the State of Play gameplay deep dive that PlayStation broadcast in August 2026. Over an aerial view of a lakeside town, the subtitles read:
“The ‘Phantom World’ is our stage for the style we call Kungfupunk: where traditional Kungfu collides with steampunk machinery and body modification.”
The Steam page, written by S-GAME, lists the parts: “Martial arts, cold steel, mechanical prosthetics, crumbling industrial ruins, traditional Chinese aesthetics, and modern rock music. Together, they create the dark, unmistakable aesthetic of kungfupunk.” The sentence before it reads: “The golden age of wuxia cinema collides with punk fantasy in Phantom Blade Zero.” Official Steam store page, read 14 October 2026
Earlier in the same broadcast, Donnie Yen, introduced on screen as the game’s Creative Consultant, says: “Phantom Blade Zero embraces both imaginations and distinct cultural elements to create a new aesthetic we call ‘Kungfupunk’.” Official State of Play gameplay deep dive, 1:22–1:32, burned-in subtitles
The word also covers how the fights are staged. S-GAME’s official site says the Year of the Snake boss fight used motion capture from several martial artists, directed by veteran action choreographers, “to deliver what we’ll call a ‘kungfupunk’ experience — rooted in tradition, expressed through something eerie yet novel.” Official pbz.s-game.com, news post, January 2025
Who coined kungfupunk?
The name was introduced by Soulframe Liang, founder of S-GAME and the game’s creator and director. The earliest official use we found is his announcement post on the PlayStation Blog of 24 May 2023. Under a heading “Kungfupunk”, the post, written in the studio’s “we”, says the game adds “a heavy dose of punk spirit, alongside with stylish visuals. We call this overall art direction ‘Kungfupunk’.” Official PlayStation Blog, 24 May 2023, signed by Soulframe Liang
In the same post he describes the game’s universe, the Phantom World, as a place where you will find “Chinese Kungfu, intricate machines reminiscent of steampunk, arts of the occult, and intriguing stuff that doesn’t quite fit into any of these categories.” Official PlayStation Blog, 24 May 2023
A Chinese preview credits the idea to him by name: a Zhihu Games writer’s six-hour preview, reposted on gcores in 2026, calls kungfupunk a style that blends traditional Chinese wuxia and kung fu culture with modern pop elements, and says it is Liang Qiwei’s original concept (our translation; Liang Qiwei is the Chinese form of his name). Press-reported Zhihu Games writer’s six-hour preview, reposted on gcores (a user submission there), 2026, in Chinese
In English interviews Liang says it in three words. To RPG Site in December 2025: “The style we are creating for Phantom Blade Zero is called Kung fu punk, where we incorporate our traditional Kung fu and Chinese culture with modern fashion elements, like steampunk, cyberpunk, some fashion elements”. Press-reported RPG Site interview, 19 December 2025
We found no source that dates the word before 2023. Unconfirmed Absence in the sources we read, not a confirmed first use.
What does kungfupunk mix together?
Each ingredient below is named by S-GAME or by Liang. Nothing is added from our own reading.
| Ingredient | Named by |
|---|---|
| Traditional kung fu and Chinese martial arts | State of Play deep dive, 6:08 (“traditional Kungfu”); Steam (“Martial arts”) Official |
| Wuxia cinema | Steam (“The golden age of wuxia cinema collides with punk fantasy”) Official |
| Steampunk machinery | State of Play deep dive (“steampunk machinery”); PlayStation Blog, 2023 (“intricate machines reminiscent of steampunk”) Official |
| Body modification and mechanical prosthetics | State of Play deep dive (“body modification”); Steam (“mechanical prosthetics”) Official |
| Industrial ruins | Steam (“crumbling industrial ruins”) Official |
| The occult | PlayStation Blog, 2023 (“arts of the occult”) Official |
| Modern rock music | Steam (“modern rock music”) Official |
| Cyberpunk and modern fashion | Liang to RPG Site, December 2025 (“steampunk, cyberpunk, some fashion elements”) Press-reported |
| A dark tone | Steam (“the dark, unmistakable aesthetic”); Steam users also tag the game Dark Fantasy Official Store data user-defined tag |
In a 2024 interview with Gamersky, Liang explains the idea in Chinese: on the art side, kungfupunk takes traditional Chinese aesthetics apart and mixes them with modern or pop elements, the way Jay Chou’s songs, Chinese street-fashion brands or designer toys do. He adds that it should run through the whole game, not only the visuals: the way the story is told, the characters and the underlying setting. His example is Sha-Chi and Sha-Chi body modification, where very cool mechanical armour bursts out of the human body (our translation). Press-reported Gamersky interview, 16 July 2024, in Chinese
What does kungfupunk look like in the game?
The official images show the mix directly. Each caption describes only what is visible in the frame.
Previews describe the same blend in the buildings. The Zhihu Games writer, standing below a tower in the preview build, describes carved beams, painted rafters and upturned eaves of Chinese pavilions fused with steel frames, chimneys, tangled pipes and hot boilers (our translation). Press-reported Zhihu Games writer, reposted on gcores, 2026, in Chinese
The same preview calls music the other half of kungfupunk: traditional Chinese instruments mixed with psychedelic electronic sounds, by a composer who has scored the series since Rainblood (our translation). Press-reported Zhihu Games writer, reposted on gcores, 2026, in Chinese
English previews sum it up in their own words. DualShockers calls kungfupunk “essentially a stylized reinterpretation of Wuxia, a classic genre of Chinese martial arts fantasy, infused with a dark, industrial steampunk aesthetic.” Press-reported DualShockers, October 2026
Where does kungfupunk come from? From Rainblood to Phantom Blade
Liang’s 2023 post traces the game to Rainblood: Town of Death, which he says he made himself with RPG Maker in 2010. Rainblood grew into a franchise renamed Phantom Blade, mostly smartphone games released only in China. He calls Phantom Blade Zero “the spiritual rebirth of the original Rainblood”, and says it “has never changed in its core”. Official PlayStation Blog, 24 May 2023
In the 2024 Gamersky interview, Liang says the new game has two identities: a spiritual successor with nods for long-time players, and a completely new game that needs no knowledge of the earlier story (our translation). Press-reported Gamersky, 16 July 2024, in Chinese
That interview also shows a second Chinese name for the style. The interviewer calls it 
武侠朋克, roughly “wuxia punk”, and Liang answers by speaking of “our wuxiapunk, or kungfupunk” (our translation), using both. The official Chinese pages we read use only 功夫朋克. Press-reported Gamersky, 16 July 2024; Official Steam (Simplified Chinese)
功夫朋克Kungfupunk White characters cut into red: the official Chinese name, on Steam and the official site.
武侠朋克Wuxia punk Red characters in a red border: used by Liang and Gamersky in 2024, not on the official pages we read.The earlier games, their cast and how the new story connects are on the Rainblood story so far.
Kungfupunk vs wuxia, xianxia, steampunk and cyberpunk
The middle column gives a standard definition of each word. The right column gives only what S-GAME’s own texts say about the word in connection with Phantom Blade Zero.
| Word | What it means | What S-GAME says |
|---|---|---|
| Wuxia | “a genre of fiction or cinema that features warrior heroes, usually set in ancient China” Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries | The PlayStation Blog of August 2026 calls the game “our dark wuxia action game”; Liang’s on-screen introduction calls it “a dark Wuxia epic”. Official PlayStation Blog; State of Play, 2:58 |
| Xianxia | “a genre of Chinese fantasy literature heavily inspired by Chinese mythology”, whose heroes are often cultivators seeking immortality Unconfirmed English Wikipedia, read 14 October 2026 | None of the official texts we read uses the word xianxia: the Steam pages in English and Chinese, the official site and the PlayStation Blog posts of May 2023 and August 2026. Unconfirmed Absence in the sources we read. |
| Steampunk | “a type of science fiction set in a time when machines used steam for power, often the 19th century” Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries | “steampunk machinery” (State of Play); “intricate machines reminiscent of steampunk” (2023). Official |
| Cyberpunk | “stories set in an unpleasant imaginary future world controlled by technology and computers” Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries | The official texts we read do not use the word. Liang names cyberpunk as one modern influence in an interview. Press-reported RPG Site, December 2025 |
| Kungfupunk | S-GAME’s own word: “traditional Kungfu collides with steampunk machinery and body modification” Official | An “art direction” (2023) and an “aesthetic” (Steam, State of Play). Official |
Our reading of the table, not a source’s: in S-GAME’s wording the machines are steam-age machinery and prosthetics, not computers, and the base is wuxia rather than xianxia.
Is kungfupunk a genre?
S-GAME uses it for the look and feel, not as the game’s genre. For the genre, the sources give other labels:
- The Steam page lists the genre as Action and RPG. Store data Steam, Genre field
- The PlayStation Blog of August 2026, signed by Liang, calls it a “dark wuxia action game”. Official
- Liang told PC Gamer the studio wants “to create a new subgenre [within] the RPG or action game: a kung fu action game.” Press-reported PC Gamer, Wes Fenlon, August 2025
- A June 2025 letter from Liang, quoted by Push Square, asks: “Maybe it could create a new identity that is Wuxia Action Games?” Press-reported Push Square, 25 June 2025
Whether the game counts as a soulslike is a separate question, answered on Is Phantom Blade Zero a soulslike?
What is not yet known
| The first use of the word | The earliest official use we found is May 2023. Whether Liang used it earlier, for instance in Chinese, is not in the sources we read. |
|---|---|
| Who speaks the 6:08 line | It is spoken over gameplay, after Liang introduces himself on screen at 2:48; no one is shown speaking. PC Gamer attributes this part of the narration to Liang, and GosuGamers credits the description to him. Press-reported PC Gamer, 18 August 2026; GosuGamers |
| Whether the game’s menus use the word | Not known until launch on 29 October 2026. |
FAQ
What does kungfupunk mean?
It is S-GAME’s name for the style of Phantom Blade Zero: “traditional Kungfu collides with steampunk machinery and body modification”, in the words of the official State of Play deep dive. The Steam page adds mechanical prosthetics, industrial ruins, traditional Chinese aesthetics and modern rock music.
Is it “kungfupunk” or “kung fu punk”?
Official English text writes one word, “kungfupunk” or “Kungfupunk”: the Steam page, the official site, the 2023 PlayStation Blog post and the State of Play subtitles. Press coverage also writes “kung fu punk” (GosuGamers, Wccftech, Inven Global) and “Kung Fu-punk” (GamingBible).
Who came up with the word kungfupunk?
The name was introduced in Soulframe Liang’s PlayStation Blog post of 24 May 2023, which says, in the studio’s voice, “We call this overall art direction ‘Kungfupunk’.” A Chinese preview writer calls it Liang’s original concept.
What is kungfupunk in Chinese?
The official Chinese name is 功夫朋克, on the Chinese Steam page and the official site. In a 2024 interview Liang also said 武侠朋克, roughly “wuxia punk”.
Is Phantom Blade Zero wuxia or xianxia?
S-GAME calls it wuxia: “our dark wuxia action game” on the PlayStation Blog, and “a dark Wuxia epic” in Liang’s State of Play introduction. None of the official texts we read uses the word xianxia.
Is kungfupunk the same as cyberpunk?
No. Cyberpunk is usually about a future run by computers. S-GAME’s definition of kungfupunk names traditional kung fu, steampunk machinery and body modification. Liang has named cyberpunk as one modern influence among several in an interview.
Is kungfupunk.com the official Phantom Blade Zero site?
No. Kungfupunk.com is an unofficial fan field manual, not made or endorsed by S-GAME. The official site is pbz.s-game.com. See About.