S-Game’s Phantom Blade Zero dropped on PC & PS5 less than a day ago and already we’ve seen the modding community come in clutch with some first mods. Immediate access to visual fidelity and difficulty tweakmods are now at your disposal. This swift turnaround shows the technical accessibility of the game. Also, it gives early access to performance mods before we receive official patches.
Community mods deliver neural rendering and difficulty tweaks immediately
Phantom Blade Zero includes NVIDIA DLSS & Streamline plugins at launch, but no neural rendering runtime. And that’s where the new mod named DLSS5 MOD Install with one click comes in handy. It provides us with the NVIDIA DLSSNR runtime. This mod uses ReShade 6.8 & RenoDX DLSS addon to redirect game’s current DLSS calls through the new runtime.
In addition to visual fidelity, the PBZ Tuner mod gives you access to gameplay parameters to tweak. It gives granular control over difficulty. In other words, you’ll be able to tinker around with stats & timing windows as you please.
Then there’s the 66 Days Unlocked mod that gives you access to the highest difficulty for new playthroughs. This one removes the restriction for the highest difficulty.
In a previous article, we’ve discussed the possibility of having the Platinum Trophy in a single playthrough. The 66 deaths mode requirement was a topic we discussed in our previous article. That said, with this new mod, 66 Days Unlocked, this specific challenge is getting a direct impact because of the difficulty cap removal.
What’s evident here is that Phantom Blade Zero is indeed modding-friendly and ready to receive some technical additions from the community right at launch. With the DLSS 5, it gets some neural rendering juice, which was non-existent beforehand. Of course, it’s too early to tell if the visuals of the game benefit from the changes. But, there’s a glimpse of potential in the early screenshots.
Does the DLSSNR runtime actually boost frame rates or just upscale noise? I need independent benchmarks before trusting modded renderers.
It is too early to tell if the visuals benefit. The mod routes existing calls but without official validation the performance gain is unproven.
mods appearing less than 24h after launch is wild 🤔
I still worry about these one-click installers hiding telemetry or bundled bloatware in the ReShade package.
The PBZ Tuner is actually useful for granular difficulty tweaks unlike the standard settings menu.
S-Game shipping with Streamline plugins but no runtime feels like a lazy decision that forces community patching.
The mod uses ReShade 6.8 and RenoDX to redirect calls. It does not add native DLSS 5 support to the engine itself.
Can I use the 66 Days Unlocked mod for new playthroughs or does it break achievements?
The 66 Days Unlocked mod removes the restriction for the highest difficulty. It likely bypasses achievement checks since it alters core gameplay parameters.