How many weapons does Phantom Blade Zero have?

The game has 30 main weapons, and 25 of them are documented here. Polygon's review puts the primary arsenal at 30, Fextralife and Grindnstrat agree, and the named lists across all three stop at the same 25 — so the five missing blades are a real gap in the guides, not a rounding error on our side. They look like late Mount Soulrend and hidden content. We list the 25 we can name, with a source for each, rather than pad the table with guesses.

The arsenal splits into three types, and the split matters more than any single weapon:

Type Count What it does well What it costs
One-handed 9 Fastest recovery, easiest to weave parries into Lowest per-hit guard break
Dual-wield 8 Longest combo strings, best at building status gauges Locked into attack animations
Two-handed 8 Highest guard break and stagger Slow recovery, punishes whiffs

You carry two main weapons and two Phantom Edges, so a "build" is a pairing decision, not a single item. Our Phantom Edge guide covers the secondary slot, which works on completely different rules.

All one-handed weapons

Weapon How to get it Signature effect
Wooden Sanguine Starting weapon None — tutorial blade
Sanguine Default, available from the start None — the baseline
Jagged Steel Drop: Jagged Steel, the Frenzied Brute (Weeping Creek Valley) Bleed buildup — but no effect on puppets, golden bodies or phantom bodies without the Livingwood Talisman
The Fanatic's Broken Blade Drop: Hua Qianxiao, the Sword Fanatic (Crimson Forest) Bottomless Drink — a tipsy state that turns attacks into flying swords and restores sha-chi
Tianxuan Bronze Sword Drop: Master Bi Yuan of the Tianxuan Sect (Village of Lu) Natural Order — cheaper blocking, but parrying is disabled entirely
Wild Oriole Sword Mu Xiaokui's third-phase encounter (Village of Lu) Oriole Song — 10 seconds where heavy attacks fire a rending blade wave
Soft Snake Sword Drop: Wu Lengshuang, the Soft Sword (Mandate Encampment) Serpentine Reversal — deflect and redirect damage instead of parrying; dodges become sidesteps
Freezing Chaos Drop: Yucong, No. 34 Twisted Puppet (hidden boss, Triple Threat quest) Threefold Shift — swap between Steel (damage), Chaos (burn) and Frost (freeze) mid-combo
Aureate Drop: Zho Shang, the true-ending boss Not documented in the sources checked

A note on classification: several guides list every weapon alphabetically and file Sanguine Twin, Scarlet Wraithblade and Sanguine Reach under one-handed. They are dual-wield and two-handed respectively, and they appear in the tables below rather than twice here.

All dual-wield weapons

Weapon How to get it Signature effect
Sanguine Twin Weapon rack past Yu'er, Weeping Creek Valley None — the first dual-wield pair
Fiend Saws Mu Xiaokui's encounter, Village of Lu (needs all five ribbons for the extra phases) Fiend Form — 10 seconds of unblockable attacks and bonus damage to guard-broken enemies
White Serpent & Crimson Viper Beating Bai Chilian; received when you wake in Village of Lu Twin Serpent Dance — a looping combo that escalates damage, plus a ranged execution on distant low-HP enemies
Parting Hooks Drop: Soulclaimer, northeast docks of Pangzhen Guard Stance — blocks and counters automatically, except against black-flash moves
Sundering Dual Axes Drop: Heartpiercer, White Serpent House (Meigu Lake) Baleful Aura — 20 seconds of extra damage and sha-chi drain; combos throw axes that latch on
Baishan Stormswords Drop: Yubi, No. 21 Swordfighter Puppet (Mandate Encampment, Illusory Pipa quest) Wind and thunder gauges that combine into Baishan's Blessing, a 20-second damage window
Seamless Death Drop: Jade-Face (Mountain of Imprisonment) Reaping Rings — disengage and throw tracking rings at range
The Lady's Fan Drop: Meng Hua, the final boss Not documented in the sources checked

All two-handed weapons

Weapon How to get it Signature effect
Sanguine Reach Weapon rack beside Forge, Weeping Creek Valley Outpost None — the baseline heavy
Scarlet Wraithblade Sha-Chi Tower slide path, then beat Hua, Deadly Betrothed Red Spider Lilies — ground hazards that slow, drain sha-chi and detonate
Outlaw Warblade Drop: Jing Ye, the Outlaw (Crimson Forest) Lifesteal on every hit — but puppets, golden bodies and phantom bodies are immune
Armybreaker Drop: Cavalrybane, Pangzhen market Rushes you forward when you switch to it or parry a blue-flash attack
Juggernaut Drop: Bi Feng, the Giant Saber Commander (Mountain of Imprisonment) Each parry stacks Red Edge; a full stack turns the blade red for a heavy payoff
Whiteshadow Four Acolyte Masks → ice shallows west of Meigu Lake → Discordance realm → beat Blizzard Blademaster Chill and freeze buildup; the Power Surge guarantees a freeze
Crescent Blade Drop: Yuding, No. 12 Crescent Blade Puppet Not documented in the sources checked
Bonesaw Drop: The Saw and the Crusher Not documented in the sources checked

How upgrading works

Forge, in Weeping Creek Valley Outpost, handles upgrades. You meet him in the first region, and weapons unlock new abilities at levels 5, 10, 15 and 25 — so a weapon you dislike at level 3 may get its signature tool later.

Three systems sit on top of that, and they behave differently:

System Reversible? What it needs When to use it
Upgrade Yes Standard materials Freely, to test a weapon's later abilities
Reforge — Nothing; returns invested materials When you want to move a budget to another weapon
Soul Temper No Weapon-specific material + Remnant Dust, unlocked around Chapter 4 via Myst in Pangzhen Only on a weapon you have already played a full region with

The honest warning: Soul Tempering changes a weapon's effect permanently. Because it needs a material specific to that weapon, a wrong choice costs you both the material and the tempered form. Nothing in the sources checked suggests it can be undone.

Which weapons should you actually build around?

Type is a starting filter, not a recommendation. The best weapons guide matches six weapons to the specific problem each solves, and the tier list explains what separates a weapon that carries a fight from one that only looks good in a trailer.

Two general rules survived contact with the released game:

  • Carry one answer to armour and one answer to speed. A single type leaves a hole: two-handed breaks guards but loses to fast feints, dual-wield builds gauges but struggles to break a shield.
  • Check the immunity line before you commit. Bleed and lifesteal both fail against puppets, golden bodies and phantom bodies — a large share of the late-game roster. The Livingwood Talisman partially patches this, which is why neither effect is a dead end.

What is not confirmed

Question Status
The five weapons between 25 documented and 30 Unidentified — the named lists stop at 25; the rest look like late Mount Soulrend and hidden content
Exact damage and guard-break numbers per weapon Published per weapon by Game8, not independently verified here
Signature effects for Aureate, The Lady's Fan, Crescent Blade, Bonesaw Not documented in the sources checked
Whether Soul Temper has multiple branches per weapon Unclear — described as a transformation, not a tree
Whether a patch changed any weapon's balance No evidence yet

Sources