Chinese PlayStation game Lost Soul Aside fails due to its own ambitions
8/9/2025
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook
Lost Soul Aside has undergone a remarkable development journey. Unfortunately, the end product is disappointing.
The gaming world often features inspiring underdog stories. Beautiful stories of passionate developers who, against all expectations, realise their vision and achieve that big breakthrough.
I’d have loved to tell such a story in this article on Lost Soul Aside. What began as a solo project by Chinese developer Yang Bing grew into a turbulent eleven-year development journey full of setbacks.
Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end with a happy ending, but with a sobering game that fails because of its own ambitions.
A turbulent eleven-year development story
Before critically analysing Lost Soul Aside, it’s worth taking a closer look at its development history. Work on the game began in 2014. Chinese student Yang Bing was a big gaming fan and loved RPGs like Final Fantasy as well as hard-hitting action titles such as Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry. A trailer for Final Fantasy XV dazzled him so much that he decided to immerse himself in the world of game development.
He taught himself design and programming, also learning how to use Unreal Engine 4. After two years of self-study and experimentation, he released a five-minute trailer on the status of his solo project Lost Soul Aside in 2016. It quickly went viral. No wonder, what we saw was pretty impressive – especially for a one-man project!
That same year, Sony began entering the Chinese gaming market. The Japanese company launched its PlayStation China Hero Project, an initiative by Sony to support Chinese teams in development, publishing and marketing. Sony became aware of Bing’s project thanks to the viral trailer for Lost Soul Aside, offering him a spot in the initiative.
Bing agreed, and a year later, with Sony’s help, he founded his own studio – Ultizero Games. The team, initially consisting of just five members, worked hard on the title. Their ambitions and employee count grew rapidly with new resources – too rapidly. According to Chinese reports, the project was at an impasse by the end of 2019. Originally planned open-world elements had to be removed due to a lack of experience on the part of the developers and designers. Around a year later, the project was completely reset.
The Covid pandemic threw yet another spanner in the works for Bing’s team during a crucial development phase. Lockdowns significantly slowed down the pace of the project, and many employees left the company. According to a report out of China, Bing was under massive stress during this time, losing hair on top of it becoming increasingly grey.
Source: Ultizero Games
Sony had to step in during this difficult time. Ultizero received support from PlayStation on various levels – substantial adjustments were also being made to the story. This was followed by several pushed back release dates and a scandal: a leaked internal document revealed an employee had made racist statements.
Lost Soul Aside was finally scheduled for release on PS5 and PC at the end of August – without any major marketing or reviews at launch. Fans were sceptical. As it turned out, they were unfortunately justified.
A love letter without substance
Due to the crazy development history, I became aware of the game and decided to test it. Bing’s love of Final Fantasy – and Final Fantasy XV in particular – is evident from the very first minutes. The game’s a love letter to the legendary Square Enix JRPG series. Some may find the obvious inspirations a little ham-fisted, but I celebrate them. I can immediately sense passion behind the project.
In Lost Soul Aside, you take on the role of Kaser, a resistance fighter who, alongside his rebel group, fights against a tyrannical oppressive empire. And as if this threat from an evil emperor wasn’t enough, interdimensional creatures – the so-called Voidrax – suddenly appear in the capital to steal the souls of its inhabitants. Even your sister gets wiped out.
What’s a man to do? Simple, team up with one of the «good» Voidrax. From here on, the dragon Lord Arena accompanies you on an interdimensional search for those lost souls, including that of your sister.
Source: Ultizero Games
My initial enthusiasm for the Final Fantasy flair quickly turned into disillusionment as the game progressed. This love letter lacks any substance.
Yes, these characters with their crazy hairstyles and over-the-top costumes could’ve come straight out of a Final Fantasy game. But none of the people I got to know stuck with me. Characters feel soulless (pun intended), two-dimensional and uninteresting. No exciting story develops, many storylines peter out, I didn’t root for anyone, I didn’t care about anything.
This probably also has to do with the often unintentionally weird cutscenes and dialogue. I got the feeling that a lot of things were moved around, cut or otherwise changed last minute as part of the rearranged story.
Also, the English dub… well, it’s not good. Many of the performances seem uninspired, some are even annoying. First among these is Lord Arena, who, I can’t describe it any other way, is just an asshole. The Voidrax dragon kept insulting and abusing me.
«What were you thinking,» he shouts as I die. «Don’t embarrass me,» he yells in my face before a fight. «You should have listened to me,» he lets me know over and over again. Now that’s what I call a toxic relationship.
From open to empty world
The visual design is again reminiscent of Square Enix’s legendary JRPG series across every location. Ultizero combined magical fantasy elements with more realistic visuals and merged the contrast into an exciting mix.
But yet again, my initial positive impression gave way to disillusionment here. Once more, there’s just no substance behind the spectacle. I often wandered through superficially impressive, sprawling levels with opulent buildings and beautiful nature. In reality, however, these game worlds are just empty backdrops with narrow tube-like levels – I’m reminded of games from the PS3 era.
The individual gameplay mechanics I experienced in these levels also hark back to the old days. They feel like haphazardly assembled foreign objects and are endlessly repeated. You collect items and gold. From time to time, you have to prove yourself in frustrating platforming passages. Trial-and-error, what else? The puzzles are inane busywork, and arena battles against all kinds of villains are copy-pasted every few metres.
Sometimes the game takes you to semi-open areas where you have to fulfil certain objectives in order to progress. They all feel like remnants of that over-ambitious, discarded open-world approach. What remains is an empty shell of what could’ve been. It’s a shame the development team got lost in ideas that led nowhere instead of concentrating on Yang Bing’s core competencies: the combat system.
A rocking combat system
You have to hand one thing to Lost Soul Aside – the combat system is very, very good. Here, too, you can immediately sense Bing’s inspiration and love for the source material. A bit of Bayonetta, mixed with Ninja Gaiden and a pinch of Devil May Cry. The original trailer from 2016 conveyed these vibes in the combat system surprisingly well.
Looks like the intense, lightning-fast and beautifully staged battles have been at the core of the gameplay from the very start. This core has survived all the setbacks and resets – and with a surprising amount of meat on the bone. In contrast to the story and level design, there’s no sad sobering as the game progresses – on the contrary. The combat system just keeps getting better.
Source: Ultizero Games
You use various weapons unlocked over the course of the game to deal with enemies. Some of them are large and cumbersome, others strike at enemies with frightening speed. The combo system is fun. You combine different attack patterns into devastating attacks and charge up several bars for special attacks along the way. Triggering these, you’re rewarded with wonderfully exaggerated and overpowered attack sequences. The whole thing is rounded off with evasive manoeuvres and blocks that unfold their full effect with perfect timing.
The game always manages to introduce new elements into battle with its upgrade system. You’re constantly unlocking new attacks, weapons or equipment with which you can try out new strategies.
Just a shame that battles are trapped in such a dull level design corset. Even though I enjoyed fighting, I got tired after a few hours due to the repetitive game structure. If I’m forced to beat away the same foot soldiers every few steps or defeat bosses in the same way every time, I will need a break – no matter how good the combat system is.
Technical problems and a look ahead
The technical implementation of Lost Soul Aside is yet another indicator of the turbulent development and the numerous last-minute changes that were made to the project. On my interdimensional journey, I was repeatedly accompanied by annoying stutters in Performance mode on the PS5 Pro – even though there wasn’t much going on on-screen. The sound didn’t always want to join in either. Songs suddenly broke off, dialogue just stopped.
The game also suffers from confusing menus, controls that are too sensitive in places and an annoying camera that reliably showed what I didn’t want to see, especially during boss fights.
It’s unclear how the game will go forward. On Opencritic, the project has an average rating of 63, the Steam statistics reveal a meagre peak of just 3,070 concurrent players. The studio is responding to reviews and is working on patches for the game. However, a comeback story à la No Man’s Sky seems unlikely – the foundations of the game are too wonky for that.
We can only hope that Ultizero and Yang Bing get another chance to realise their vision in another game, despite the failure of their first project. They deserve it.
Lost Soul Aside is available for PS5 and PC. The game was provided to me by Sony for the PS5 (Pro) for testing purposes.
In a nutshell
Besides spectacular fights, Lost Soul Aside doesn’t have much going on
I’d have enjoyed seeing passionate developer Yang Bing and his team Ultizero score a big hit with Lost Soul Aside. Sadly, what started out as the passion project of a gaming fan developed into a release that’s failed because of its own ambitions.
The core game does work generally: its fast-paced combat system is spectacularly staged, challenging and fun. The visual presentation is also solid overall, obviously drawing from Final Fantasy. Still, there’s little substance behind the façade. Individual game elements seem haphazardly and chaotically stitched together, the dull level design wears out quickly and the story doesn’t get going.
I think wistfully of what this project could’ve become – with realistic ambitions, no global pandemic and with just a little more luck. Let’s hope Bing and his team get a second chance.
Pro
- Solid combat system
Contra
- Dull level design
- Forgettable story
- Technical problems
Domagoj Belancic
Senior Editor
Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.chMy love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.
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