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What type of game is Stellar Blade?
- Stellar Blade is an action game, focusing on fast-paced combat. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world.
- Stellar Blade is a single-player experience, seemingly borrowing a lot of elements from Nier.
Many are wondering if Stellar Blade is a Soulslike game, but we think there is more going on than that. Stellar Blade is the debut console game from the Korean-based studio Shift Up. One of the founders of Shift Up, Kim Hyung-tae, is responsible for the MagnaCarta games, and you can probably see the visual similarities between this and Stellar Blade here.
In terms of the Stellar Blade genre, it is a clear-cut action game. Stellar Blade is decidedly more sci-fi, seemingly taking a lot of inspiration from the Nier games in terms of its setting. The experience is entirely single-player, being billed as a story-focuses action game.
Is Stellar Blade a Soulslike game?
No. Stellar Blade has nothing in common with Souls games like Elden Ring, Bloodborne, or Dark Souls. From playing the demo of Stellar Blade, we know there is no stamina bar and the movement is completely different. Typically, Souls games are rigid and focus on stamina-based combat, which doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Yes, there is a rest system and replenishable healing, but the games and genre have precious little in common. If you really want a comparison, you can say that Stellar Blade uses a similar parry/deflection system to Sekiro, but Souls isn’t and shouldn’t be part of the equation with Stellar Blade. There is also an option to change the difficulty setting, which is not a feature in Souls games.
Stellar Blade genre and setting
Based on the demo and the various trailers that have been released, Stellar Blade is firmly an action game. Your character runs around set levels and kills enemies and bosses you encounter much like you would expect in a third-person action game. In Stellar Blade, you fight enemies and improve your combat abilities through skill points, along with unlocking different upgrades and improvements for combat.
Outside of this, Stellar Blade is also referred to by the developers as a semi-open-world game. This isn’t something we get to experience in the demo, so we will have to see what this looks like in the full release.
The PSN listing for Stellar Blade describes the game as follows: “A story-driven action adventure with fast-paced combat and RPG elements, set in the sci-fi inspired environments of a post-apocalyptic world”. It goes on to add that Stellar Blade is set in a ‘not-too-distant future Earth, devastated by a mysterious force that has expelled humankind from its home planet’.
From all this information, we can safely say that Stellar Blade is simply a sci-fi action game. Whether or not the combat ends up being as fun as it seems, remains to be seen. We don’t have much longer to wait, since the Stellar Blade release date is the end of April, and if you want to play early you can access a free demo on the PS5 right now.
