6 Factions to Know Before Playing Phantom Blade Zero

The Phantom World is shaped by competing organizations, martial families, and hidden powers. Knowing their names helps, but knowing which version of the story they belong to matters just as much. A faction can be central to an older Phantom Blade game without having a confirmed place in Phantom Blade Zero.

Soul, the protagonist, was an elite assassin serving The Order. After being framed for its patriarch’s murder, he is gravely wounded in the ensuing manhunt. A mysterious healer saves him temporarily, leaving him 66 days to uncover the truth. That is the premise established in S-GAME’s original PlayStation introduction.

Canon Notice: S-GAME describes Phantom Blade Zero as a “spiritual rebirth of the original Rainblood.” This guide separates information confirmed for Zero from legacy Phantom Blade lore whose role in the new game has not been established.

The six entries below are a reading guide, not an official six-faction roster. Eleven Pavilion and Mirage share one entry because of their connections in older material. English names for legacy groups may also vary between translations.

Which factions are confirmed for Phantom Blade Zero?

Confirmed: The Order and the Bastion of Mó have direct support in current official material. Unknown: the other groups’ participation, membership, and relationships in Zero. Status labels below reflect sources checked on September 20, 2026.

The setting mixes Chinese kung fu and wuxia with strange machinery, occult elements, and fantasy. S-GAME calls its aesthetic Kungfupunk; the official website also emphasizes folk horror. Machinery reminiscent of steampunk is one ingredient, not a complete description of the world.

Our wuxia, Wulin, and jianghu guide explains the cultural vocabulary. Here, the useful distinction is between a martial community and the organizations competing within it. “Wulin” does not automatically name a single faction, government, or alliance.

1. The Order — Soul’s Former Home and Greatest Pursuer

Status: Confirmed in Phantom Blade Zero

The Order is the elusive, powerful organization at the center of Soul’s predicament. He served it as an elite assassin; the accusation that he killed its patriarch turns that connection into a threat. This is the faction to understand first because the murder and pursuit establish his immediate problem.

The dramatic tension is personal as well as political. Reading the premise, Soul has lost more than the protection of an employer: the institution that gave his work meaning now supplies the context for his persecution. That is an interpretation of the setup, not a claim that every former colleague has betrayed him. The announcement does not identify who knows the truth or who benefits from the accusation.

Older games supply ranks, officers, and complicated relationships within the organization. Those details can make an old character profile appear more complete than Zero’s current introduction, but completeness is not evidence of continuity. A rank used in a previous game should not be assigned to a Zero character solely because the name is familiar.

For now, leave the exact chain of command, the patriarch’s wider family relationships, and individual loyalties open. Our Soul and The Order story guide follows the confirmed premise without importing an older organization chart. The Order remains the faction most directly connected to Soul’s main story.

2. The Bastion of Mó — A Major Power of the Wulin

Status: Confirmed in Phantom Blade Zero

The Bastion of Mó has a named leader in current official material. S-GAME’s pre-order announcement identifies Mó Yuan as Leader of the Bastion of Mó. Donnie Yen provides his facial and motion capture, giving this faction a firmly identified representative rather than a name inferred from older lore.

Yen’s involvement extends beyond portraying one character. He has served as Creative Consultant since 2023, contributing to the game’s kung fu style and action design. The August 2026 State of Play article also describes his performance and creative guidance. Our Donnie Yen profile covers those roles in more detail.

What does the reveal establish about the faction? A leader’s name and title. It does not, by itself, settle the Bastion’s entire political position or Mó Yuan’s relationship with Soul. A forceful appearance in a trailer is insufficient to label someone a permanent ally, an ultimate enemy, or the author of the central conspiracy.

Older accounts of the Mó family offer a tempting shortcut to those answers. This guide does not carry their foundation stories, family conflicts, or martial inheritance into Zero. The same restraint applies to fighting styles: an actor’s association with a particular film role does not identify the fictional lineage of the character he plays. See our Chinese martial arts and weapons guide for the distinction between visible influences and confirmed traditions.

3. The Dragon Clan — A Power from the Older Wulin

Status: Legacy Phantom Blade lore; role in Phantom Blade Zero unconfirmed

The Dragon Clan belongs to the established martial elite of older Phantom Blade lore. A Phantom Blade 3 developer announcement describes the Dragon family as the head of an orthodox alliance with influence across the martial world. Its family history and sword imagery place inherited prestige alongside the series’ assassins and secret organizations.

That gives newcomers a useful contrast: power in the older Wulin was not held only by covert operatives. A family could command standing through its name, lineage, and martial reputation. “Orthodox” should be read as an establishment position, however, rather than a guarantee that every member is morally righteous.

The same older announcement contains detailed family conflicts. They are evidence for that game’s story, not a ready-made explanation of Zero. This primer leaves out succession disputes, exact relationships involving Zuo Shang, and individual inheritance claims. The broad legacy identity is enough to recognize the name without treating a family tree as a spoiler.

A sword technique, familiar surname, or visual resemblance in a new trailer would need additional context before confirming the clan itself. Its role in Zero remains unconfirmed in the sources reviewed here.

4. The Xuan Clan — Knowledge, Machinery and Old Conspiracies

Status: Legacy Phantom Blade lore; role in Phantom Blade Zero unconfirmed

The Xuan family represents another kind of legacy power: knowledge and unusual technology. The older Chinese character reference associates the family with the development and transmission of mechanical arts. This is a community-maintained legacy reference, not an announcement about Zero.

There is also a narrower first-party anchor. The Phantom Blade 3 developer update linked above describes an expedition into Xuan family ruins in pursuit of material connected to killing-intent modification. It establishes the family’s place in that older game’s dangerous history; it does not establish the same expedition or discoveries in Zero.

As a reading lens, the Xuan material shifts attention from who possesses the strongest sword to who possesses the knowledge to alter the balance of power. That is an editorial interpretation of the legacy background. It should not become a claim that every strange machine shown in the new game belongs to this family.

Detailed Heavenly Book theories, a complete technological timeline, and the identities sometimes rendered Xuan Yu or Xuanyu are omitted here. Their precise relationships and roles in Zero require current evidence, and closely related transliterations are especially poor grounds for filling gaps in a new story.

5. The Eleven Pavilion and Mirage — Powers Behind the Curtain

Status: Legacy Phantom Blade lore; role in Phantom Blade Zero unconfirmed

These names connect the older franchise’s hidden alliances with its machinery and experimentation. The Chinese Eleven Pavilion reference describes a secret alliance that manipulates martial conflict and uses Mirage in its plans. That legacy account is kept separate from the official Zero sources.

For Mirage’s methods, there is direct older-game documentation. The Rain Blood: Mirage bestiary distributed through Steam describes modified human troops, mechanical combatants, and experimental creations. Its bilingual Noble Masque entry also connects the Chinese Eleven Pavilion name with the English localization Secret Eleven. Names can change in translation even within a single reference.

These details explain why machinery and political manipulation are linked in discussions of the older series. They do not identify the owners of machines in Zero. Recognizing a recurring design idea is different from proving that its creators, purpose, or history survived unchanged.

This entry therefore does not retell the Tianling Incident as an event in Zero, predict Mirage’s return, or turn old antagonists into a new boss list. For encounters actually revealed for the new game, use the known bosses guide. A historical faction overview and a confirmed encounter list answer different questions.

6. Ying — Assassins from the Older Phantom Blade World

Status: Legacy Phantom Blade lore; role in Phantom Blade Zero unconfirmed

Ying means Shadow. The older Chinese character reference describes it as an assassin organization drawing members from outcasts, fugitives, and fighters outside conventional martial institutions. Treat that description as legacy background, with the same source limitations as the Xuan overview.

Its relevance to a newcomer is the distinction between an occupation and an allegiance. An assassin is not automatically a member of The Order; older franchise lore contains other networks of killers. Conversely, an unidentified attacker in Zero cannot be assigned to Ying just because assassination is involved.

This guide does not give Ying a confirmed campaign role or identify Leng Tu as a confirmed Zero operative. Those claims would need an explicit current source. The name is worth recognizing when reading older material, while its place in the new game remains open.

Old History, New Wulin

Phantom Blade Zero shares creative DNA with Rainblood and earlier Phantom Blade games. Familiar names and concepts can return while their histories, relationships, and narrative functions change. Older lore is useful context, but it is not a spoiler guide for the new Wulin.

That approach leaves room to discover the world through play. S-GAME’s State of Play discussion says some side quests may open story paths and deepen the player’s understanding of the Wulin. Our exploration structure guide covers how that journey is organized; an old faction timeline cannot substitute for it.

The Order and the Bastion of Mó have the clearest direct confirmation in the official Zero material reviewed here. The remaining entries belong in the legacy-background column until S-GAME establishes otherwise.

Sources and verification

Official Zero sources, checked September 20, 2026:

• PlayStation Blog: A new beginning in a long journey — premise and spiritual rebirth.
• S-GAME: Pre-orders now available — Mó Yuan’s title and Donnie Yen’s roles.
• Official Phantom Blade Zero website — setting and aesthetic.
• PlayStation Blog: State of Play, combat and the Wulin world — Wulin and performance context.

Legacy sources, not confirmation of Zero canon:

• Phantom Blade 3: third-anniversary developer announcement — Dragon family and Xuan ruins; Chinese, signed by Soulframe.
• Rain Blood: Mirage official bestiary — legacy machinery and Secret Eleven naming.
• Chinese Phantom Blade Wiki: character reference — secondary legacy compilation for Xuan and Ying.
• Chinese Phantom Blade Wiki: Eleven Pavilion — secondary legacy account of the alliance and Mirage.

Cover: original AI-generated editorial illustration, not official game art or a depiction of confirmed faction members.