In a month, we can start with Stellar Blade, a new PS5 exclusive and the first game from the SHIFT UP studio. In two days – on March 29 – the beta version of the game will also be released, which we have already been able to try out.
Stellar Blade is set in the distant future, where humanity has been driven from Earth by the Naytiba, an alien race consisting of many monsters. You play as EVE, who is sent to Earth to restore the world.
In the demo, you get the opportunity to discover the beginning of the game and play for about an hour. What's immediately noticeable is the clear influence of games like Nier: Automata. A robot-like main character who can handle a sword well and is assisted by a drone. The effect is not difficult to see. This goes even further as the soundtrack has the same esoteric feel.
Now, it's not that Stellar Blade is a copy of Nier: Automata. For the first few minutes, you may find the gameplay similar, but soon you'll feel like the combat is more Souls-like (which is not the case in an action RPG these days…). So a lot of it is about spotting patterns, dodging attacks, and making good saves over time. Anyone who mashes buttons in Stellar Blade will die quickly.
In addition to normal attacks, light and heavy, EVE also has experimental attacks, which you can activate if you deal enough damage, manage to dodge in time, or pull off a good save. These attacks deal more damage, break shields, etc. The goal in Stellar Blade is not to perform very long combos, but to launch your attack at the right time in order to inflict maximum damage on your enemies and, if possible, throw them into confusion. .
Between battles, it is also clear that Stellar Blade is aimed at the player who will explore every corner. After all, we have already come across chests for which we do not yet have the correct code and more than once stood in front of a locked door that you can open later. So it seems that the game will sometimes require you to re-explore previous areas.
The area where the demo takes place is quite gray and not particularly attractive. There is a lot of color in the images you see when you complete the demo. This may improve dramatically as you progress through the game.
Graphically, Stellar Blade is a bit of an odd mix. The characters look very detailed – with the necessary shaking physics, by the way – but we also thought it was a bit soft in the demo. Here too, the most interesting areas seem to be in the game, but we can't judge that.
If you complete the demo, you can also play the Boss Challenge, where you can play against a monster in the game, with more powers of course. Here you immediately see that the combat system becomes more in-depth later in the game, although it certainly wasn't easy to use all those different powers suddenly out of nowhere.
