The Stellar Blade demo was leaked and promptly pulled from the PlayStation Store
On March 8, 2024, Korean developer, Shift Up, uploaded a demo for its anticipated title, Stellar Blade, to the PlayStation store before pulling it roughly 20 minutes later. With no word from either Shift Up or Sony, it appears this may have been a goof. Despite the accident, several players were able to download the demo and upload videos of it.
Stellar Blade demo arouses the horny side of the Internet
The demo appears to be the opening sections of the action title. Leading lady, Eve, crash lands on Earth alongside her squad after her ship takes fire in orbit. The few Angels that survived the descent are quickly wiped out by the opposing Naytiba. Eve herself nearly meets a similar fate before another Angel sacrifices herself to save Eve.
As I covered in my recent editorial on Stellar Blade, the development team at Shift Up took a lot of inspiration from Nier: Automata and that is abundantly clear throughout the duration of the demo.
Eve explores the abandoned ruins where humanity made its last stand against the Naytiba. She is accompanied by a hovering robot which acts as a drone for her guy-in-the-chair ally, Adam. The background music is light and unintrusive, evoking a dreamy feeling.
Of course, the bulk of that doesn’t matter as the Internet was quick to focus on Eve’s appearance, costumes, and the jiggle physics. Many videos of the demo take time to focus on these aspects by positioning the camera at odd angles to capture as much detail as possible.
The creature designs seem largely uninspired as they’re fleshy caricatures of humans, starfish, crabs, and other terrestrial beings. Despite being monstrous in their appearance, they don’t evoke any sense of horror, nor are they unique enough to make me wonder about their origins. Unlike the various ghouls that haunt a game like Bloodborne, where details matter and add to the lore and world, I suspect you could swap Stellar Blade’s roster of enemies with generic robots and…oh my glob, it would be Nier: Automata.
It’s hard to gauge the combat as I don’t know the players’ capabilities or the demo’s limitations. Is it a slower-paced combat title like For Honor or is it a hack-and-slash title like Bayonetta? I simply have no idea until I can get my hands on it.
Vending machines and weird leather lawn chairs make up the save spots and item stores, much like Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s a little out of place, but you just have to put it out of your mind.
Puzzles appear to be simple platforming sections, finding fusion cells to unlock doors, and tracking down bodies for ID chips to unlock item chests. The resources from these chests can then be used to craft, repair, and upgrade gear.
Overall, I’m not really impressed with what’s been shown of Stellar Blade. I would like to be wrong on that front and hope the full game offers more in terms of an interesting story and more compelling gameplay, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
