Stellar Blade was one of last year’s surprise hits. The action RPG was released as a PlayStation 5 exclusive to strong sales and reviews. While the main character garnered some interesting comments from across the internet, the game was an impressive feat in terms of gameplay and visuals. Korean developer Shift Up expressed interest in a Stellar Blade sequel and a PC port shortly after the game’s launch. This makes sense, as Shift Up has seen significant revenue growth over the years, prompting them to expand in size.
Now, a little over a year later, Stellar Blade is finally coming to PC. With a release date of June 11, PC owners will soon be able to play it, and if you can’t wait, you can download the demo right now on Steam and Epic Games Store. The demo offers a small section from the beginning of the game to play through. This gives you a good sense of how the game plays and runs, too. After playing through the demo, I can honestly say I enjoyed my time with it, minus one glaring issue.
The Combat of Stellar Blade
Although the demo is brief, I got a sense of the general gameplay. Combat consists of light and heavy attacks, with special moves sprinkled in. Your defense consists of dodging, blocking, and parrying. You will combine all of these in combat and prioritize different moves based on the enemy and your preference. I thought the game would feel faster and fluid, but I found the combat a bit slow at the start. This takes a little to get used to, but once I was in the combat, it started to click for me.
The demo also gives the impression that the combat will improve the more you play. It gives you a small taste of what the skill trees will look like. There is also a gear system that, although not utilized in the demo, I believe will significantly affect gameplay as well. While I wanted the combat to do more, I see it fulfilling those wants the more you unlock. If it barely changes, well, I still found enjoyment in the small snippet I played. It all started to click with me when I faced the final boss of the demo, to the point I went through it one more time, and it felt better.
A Stellar World
If there is one thing I was immediately impressed by, it’s the world of Stellar Blade. You explore a post-apocalyptic Earth ravaged by monsters called Naytibas. You spend most of the demo in an abandoned city that I would have liked to explore more. The main narrative didn’t grab me, but the environments told a story I wanted to read more of. This carries over to the enemy design, as I enjoyed the designs of all the Naytibas and wanted to know about them. Even if I don’t end up getting the game, I can see myself getting lost in concept art and throwing on a lore video.
While I wanted more of the world, I was mixed on the main narrative and music. I won’t knock much off for the narrative, as the demo was very short, so I can’t say if it’s good or bad. As this was a demo, I was at least hoping for a narrative hook to find interesting, but sadly, it didn’t. In addition, there is some fantastic music here, but it is mainly heard at rest stops. Outside of that, the only track I can remember was the boss music, and that was grating on the ears. Perhaps this will be remedied beyond the demo, but for now, I remain hesitant.
Not Too Stellar in Performance
While it was a PS5 exclusive last year, Stellar Blade is coming to PC like every other major PlayStation release. When a game is ported to PC, I want it to be well-optimized with a variety of graphical settings. I’m pleased to report that this PC port is strong in these aspects. While it could offer more, graphical customization is decent enough and supports both Nvidia DLSS and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution. I was able to tweak the settings to my liking and prioritize performance. While I enjoyed seeing the variety of settings, sadly, one glaring issue prevented me from fully enjoying this port.
As of writing, the demo has a horrible freezing problem. When I first played the demo, I was shocked at how often it froze, and I spent a lot of time in the settings trying to fix it. Nothing fixed it, and I had to play the game while it randomly froze. This made the game unplayable at times, and I had to put it down after a while. I was ready to give up when I decided to check the Steam discussions page and saw a pinned post from the developer.
Currently, Windows Defender blocks the game from saving properly, causing the game to freeze. You have to allow the game in Defender manually, and while I’m glad it fixes the problem, I’m still annoyed I had to. After doing this once, it never occurred again, and I was able to enjoy the demo; however, this problem needs to be fixed. There also appears to be a common issue with it crashing on startup, but I have never experienced it. I hope there is enough time to fix these issues, but the PC release is just around the corner, and I can’t help but worry.
Is the Stellar Blade PC Demo Good Enough?
The Stellar Blade demo is short, but it intrigued me. While it took a while, when the combat started to click, I was enjoying my time more, and I only see the combat improving the more you play. The world is fascinating, and I wanted to keep exploring it. At the same time, the story didn’t grab me, which could be due to the demo’s length. I loved the music selection at rest stops, but I couldn’t remember what played outside of that, except for the boss track I found annoying. After all that, the only thing holding me back is the port itself.
I want to applaud this port. Many major releases have issues with optimization and supporting older GPUs. This is something a mid-range PC could easily hit 1080p 60FPS on. I want to recommend this, but I’m unable to do so right now due to the severe freezing problem. While I’m glad the developers are working on it, I’m unsure if they’ll have a fix in time for the full release. In its current state, I wouldn’t recommend it, but I hope that can change soon, as I would like to play it.
