Stellar Blade
Stellar Blade is a 2024 action-adventure game developed by Shift Up and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Players take control of the protagonist, Eve, as she embarks on a mission to save humanity from a relentless war against the Naytibas in a distant future. Throughout her journey, Eve is joined by her squad and other survivors as they fight to reclaim Earth.
Shift Up, a Korean studio founded by Kim Hyung-tae, first teased the game in 2019 under the working title Project Eve. By 2021, it was announced as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, to be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. In 2022, the game was officially named Stellar Blade.
After being delayed from its original 2023 release, Stellar Blade was launched for the PlayStation 5 on April 26, 2024. A Windows version was released on June 11, 2025. The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised its visuals and combat, though some criticism was aimed at the story. By June 2025, it had sold over 3 million units. A sequel, titled Stellar Blade 2 is in production.
Gameplay
Stellar Blade is an action-adventure video game set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, played from a third-person perspective. The combat system emphasizes understanding enemy attack patterns and countering them with precise timing. Eve's Beta Gauge fills as players successfully parry and evade in combat. The Beta Gauge can be used for skills like piercing super armor and interrupting enemy combos. Eve also possesses a Burst Gauge, which fills through successive parries and combos, allowing players to activate buffs and execute powerful attacks. The game makes use of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller, utilizing its haptic feedback to enhance the feel of enemy attacks and weapon accuracy. Exploration mechanics include wall scaling and rope swinging to traverse the environment, with rewards like extra costumes to be found. The overworld is populated with NPCs who offer side quests, which the player can choose to accept or ignore.Synopsis
Premise
Stellar Blade takes place in a post-apocalyptic world set on Earth. At the start of the 22nd century, the scientist Raphael Marks created Mother Sphere, an artificial intelligence made to advance the human race. Through her efforts, humans are able to undergo rapid biotechnological and nanotechnical evolution. However, the arrival of monstrous creatures called Naytibas threatens humanity, and ultimately humans lost the war against the Naytibas. Forced to abandon Earth, the remaining humans find sanctuary in outer space in a place called the Colony with Mother Sphere as their leader. In an effort to reclaim their home, the Colony periodically sends out squadrons of elite soldiers to continue their fight against the Naytibas. Eve, an elite soldier from the 7th Airborne Squad, is deployed to Earth in their most recent attempt. Along the way, Eve encounters two survivors Adam and Lily, and eventually settles in Xion, the last surviving human city on Earth. Eve then establishes contact with Xion's leader, Orcal, and begins forming relationships with the residents of Xion, all in pursuit of her mission to save humanity and reclaim Earth.Plot
The Colony deploys the 7th Airborne Squad in its latest attempt to liberate Earth, with orders to eliminate Alpha Naytibas as well as locate the Elder Naytiba, leader of the Naytibas. However, the operation ends disastrously; Eve becomes the sole survivor after her squadron is all but eliminated, including her commander Tachy, who is seemingly killed by an unidentified Alpha Naytiba. Eve is rescued by Adam, a human scavenger who was left behind on Earth. He enlists Eve's help in recovering a Hyper Cell power source from a ruined megacity, one of many abandoned after humanity's exodus. Eve retrieves the Hyper Cell and also succeeds in killing an Alpha Naytiba, taking its Alpha Core in the process. She then encounters and rescues Lily, a survivor from the 5th Airborne Squad, who decides to join Eve as her engineering support.Adam takes them both to Xion, the last human city on Earth. He leads them to the city's leader, Orcal, who explains to Eve that in order to find the Elder Naytiba she will need the Master Core, which requires a total of four Alpha Cores to make. He offers to guide her to the locations of other Alpha Naytibas and thus their Alpha Cores, but requests her help retrieving additional Hyper Cells; Adam explains that Xion's energy supply is dwindling and that most of the city's residents are hibernating via cryostasis as a result. Eve agrees to help Xion as part of completing her mission.
Eve leaves for the research facility Altess Levoire to retrieve the second Hyper Cell. There, she discovers it is infested with Naytibas, but notes that these Naytibas appear more human-like than previous ones she encountered. She also discovers the first of a series of recordings left behind by Raven, a member of the 2nd Airborne Squad, each chronicling Raven's findings regarding the war against the Naytibas. Eve delivers the Hyper Cell back to Xion and is led to the next Alpha Naytiba. She eventually finds another of Raven's recordings but shortly after encounters the Alpha Naytiba; to her horror, the Alpha Naytiba is revealed to be Tachy, who survived but was subsequently contaminated. After killing her and retrieving her Alpha Core, Eve is directed to another research facility Abyss Levoire for the next Hyper Cell. She finds yet another recording left by Raven, and Raven's findings culminate in a shocking revelation—Eve and others who believed themselves to be humans are actually Andro-Eidos, synthetic humans created by Mother Sphere to eradicate and replace the human race, and that the Naytibas Eve encountered are what became of the real humans in their attempt to evolve and combat the Andro-Eidos. Upon returning with the third Hyper Cell, Orcal verifies these findings, but despite her doubts Eve remains determined in completing her mission.
Eve is then informed the next Alpha Naytiba is actually located in outer space and that she must use the orbit elevator to reach it. While journeying to the elevator, Adam receives troubling news from Xion and departs the group, leaving Eve and Lily to go on without him. Eve manages to defeat the Alpha Naytiba but fails to retrieve its Alpha core, nearly dying in the process. The Colony dispatches an armored exosuit at Lily's behest, which she uses to rescue Eve and safely return to Earth. Empty-handed, the two return to Xion but discover it under attack by the same unidentified Alpha Naytiba that had attacked Eve and Tachy. After Eve defeats it and retrieves its Alpha Core, it is revealed that the Alpha Naytiba's true identity is Raven, who manages to escape. Eve then finds a dying Orcal, now revealed to also be an Alpha Naytiba as well as the first Naytiba/Andro-Eido hybrid. With only three of the four Alpha Cores in Eve's possession, Orcal sacrifices himself and gives up his own Alpha Core so that Eve can finally create the Master Core.
Eve and Lily depart Xion to search for Adam, tracking his last-known location to the Elder Naytiba's nest. At the nest's entrance, they are confronted by Raven, who scoffs them for their blind devotion to Mother Sphere despite knowing the truth, and she is ultimately defeated by Eve. With the Master Core in hand, Eve and Lily proceed inside and manage to find Adam, who reveals his true identity as both the Elder Naytiba as well as Raphael Marks, the scientist who created Mother Sphere. Adam expresses deep regret for how his actions have caused humanity's downfall, and further explains that, in addition to Naytibas and Andro-Eidos being unable to coexist, neither species will ever be true successors to the human race due to their respective biological flaws. He then explains his plan to ensure humanity's future by creating a new type of human being, one made by fusing himself with Eve, and asks her to join him.
- If Eve refuses Adam's plan, the two are forced to battle, with Eve ultimately prevailing. Adam dies along with the last hope for humanity, and Mother Sphere welcomes Eve and Lily back to the Colony now that their mission is complete.
- If Eve accepts, the two fuse together and Eve emerges as a new Naytiba/Andro-Eido hybrid. However, Lily loses control of her armored exosuit after it received a Colony-directed command to eliminate Eve. Eve is forced to defend herself, and depending on her affection with Lily, Lily either dies or survives as a result of the ensuing fight. Regardless of Lily's fate, Eve will be greeted by Mother Sphere outside the nest. With no further use for her, Mother Sphere dispatches an army to eliminate Eve, and the game ends with Eve fighting against an endless horde of Andro-Eidos soldiers.
- * If Eve had achieved maximum affection with Lily, Lily manages to eject herself from the armored exosuit before Eve destroys it. In a post-credits scene, it is shown that Eve manages to completely annihilate the army sent after her, and Lily uses the fourth and final Hyper Cell she received from Adam to fully restore Xion.
Development
In a September 2022 PlayStation State of Play, the game's final title was revealed to be Stellar Blade, accompanied by new gameplay footage and an original release window scheduled for 2023. The next day, MONACA announced their involvement, stating that their members, Oliver Good and Keita Inoue, are participating in the music production of the game, which has been reiterated multiple times prior to release. The game uses 3D scanning for some character models, with Eve being based on the model Shin Jae-eun. The Naytiba enemies were designed by Korean movie monster designer Hee-Cheol Jang, who created clay models that were then 3D scanned to produce the game's 3D models. In December 2023, the game was delayed to 2024.