Is Phantom Blade Zero Connected to Rainblood? The Series Lineage

Yes — the connection is real, direct, and the whole point of the game's title. Phantom Blade Zero shares a family tree with two earlier series. Here is the full map.

The lineage, oldest to newest

1. Rainblood: Town of Death (2007-ish era) — S-GAME's indie debut: a bleak, ink-dark wuxia RPG about conspiracies in a dying jianghu. The story of a framed killer and a world of masks became the studio's foundation stone.
2. Rainblood 2: Ye City / Rainblood: Mirage — the single-player line continued, deepening the lore of the Phantom World's factions.
3. Phantom Blade (mobile, with NetEase publishing on early entries) — the brand went global on phones: ink-painted aesthetics, steam machinery and body-modification fused into an ARPG jianghu. The Phantom Blade title stayed with S-GAME's universe even as the games moved to a new platform and business model.
4. Phantom Blade: Executioners — the most recent mobile entry before this game.
5. Phantom Blade Zero — the convergence: the Rainblood story's soul, rebuilt on Unreal Engine 5 at console scale, under the internationally recognized Phantom Blade brand.

What "same series" actually means here

Phantom Blade Zero is positioned as the orthodox continuation of that lineage — and specifically a return to the original Rainblood storyline's tone and scale, with its content described as many times larger. Director Soulframe Liang has also designed it so that newcomers need zero homework: no prior game is required to follow the plot. Old players get the deeper resonance — returning factions, the Order's politics, the recurring obsession with masks and identity.

Does the mobile game's story spoil this one?

No. The mobile titles ran their own arcs; Phantom Blade Zero restarts the core mythology for a global audience. If anything, play order is irrelevant — start here. For the world you are stepping into, see the six factions and Soul's story setup.