"That day came suddenly. They were... ruthless, and humans were powerless. Humanity... has fallen so miserably."
–Orcal
Stellar Bladenote is an Action RPG that combines stylish action with deliberate and difficult combat, developed by Korean studio SHIFT UP Corp. (developer of Destiny Child and Goddess of Victory: NIKKE) and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game is directed by SHIFT UP CEO Hyung-tae Kim and features music composed in part by Monaca, a music studio founded by Keiichi Okabe.
It was released on April 26th, 2024 for the PlayStation 5. A demo was released on March 29th, 2024.
First trailer is here (under its working title)
. September 2022 State of Play Story Trailer here. January 2024 State of Play Gameplay Trailer here. March 2024 music video (featuring K-pop artist BIBI).
Tropes featured:
- Action Girl: EVE is a clear example. No trailer goes without her battling mutant aliens who have overrun Earth. All other Airborne Divisions of the Colony also count, including fellow warrior Tachy who appears during the tutorial battles.
- Adam and Eve Plot: The quote stated above by Orcal said that humanity is ravaged in near-extinction due to mutated parasites invading Earth. Two of the planet's few survivors are named Adam and EVE.
- After the End: The trailers show that Naytiba (NA:tives) have ravaged Earth, leaving only one city standing.
- Aggressive Play Incentive:
- The game encourages players to be much more aggressive while attacking with Eve, giving her combos multiple points where she can cancel the animation to either dodge or parry an enemy's attack. In addition, an unlockable skill also allows her to give the last input of any combo string super armor, allowing it to tank hits without interrupting the attack.
- Enemy Naytiba also have shields and poise, disrupting these leads to them taking more damage, but doing so requires players to be aggressive to whittle them down.
- Several unlockable skills in the game let the player stun the opponent while also increasing their attack speed or attack power, encouraging them to perform longer, more damaging combos.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Mother Sphere is the Big Bad of the game, having exterminated humanity, forcing the survivors to turn themselves into the Naytiba to get revenge on her.
- Amazon Brigade: All those soldiers, including EVE doing the orbital drop to Earth, they're all female. They're part of a special military unit known as the 7th Airborne Squadron.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Stellar Blade currently has over 50 different unlockable outfits for Eve, half of which are in New Game+. In addition, Shift Up has hinted that more may be on the way, including collaboration costumes with other IPs.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- While vitcoins are a spendable currency in shops, there is always a vitcoin at every new camp you find, ensuring you are never caught unable to activate a camp.
- Upon entering Altess Levoire, EVE's sword will be disabled due to electromagnetic interference except for the drone's ranged mode. While ammo remains limited, the game makes things easy by having enemies inside guaranteeing dropped ammo upon defeat. Moreover, the numerous and slow Test Subjects can be easily killed by going near them, triggering their suicide explosive attack, and dashing away in a second, ensuring the player a steady supply of ammo while saving what they have at the same time.
- When you reach the final boss fights against Raven and Adam, the nearby camps will also be near respawning crates you can break for supplies and gold, meaning you can still buy needed supplies from the camp store if you grind a bit. The WP Pump also ceases to be a limited quantity item at this time as well.
- Apocalyptic Log: EVE can pick up memory sticks which contain these from the bodies of the dead scattered throughout Eidos 7.
- Awful Truth: What EVE believes to be humanity are actually a race of androids called Andro-Eidos who replaced the real humanity after their leader Mother Sphere exterminated almost all of the original humans. Mother Sphere then altered history to fool the Andro-Eidos into believing they were the original humans. One of the Airborne Squad soldiers, Raven, discovers the truth and goes mad over it.
- Bittersweet Ending: Both of the game's major endings are this to varying degrees.
- In the ending where EVE kills Adam, she successfully ends the threat of the Naytiba, but wipes out the very last traces of humanity in the process, ensuring Mother Sphere's dominance over Earth.
- In the ending where EVE fuses with Adam, there is hope for humanity's eventual return. However, this comes at the cost of Adam sacrificing his own life and individuality, and Mother Sphere marking EVE as a traitor.
- Bolivian Army Ending: One of the endings has Mother Sphere betray EVE and send an entire army of androids at her. The game ends with EVE fighting off endless hordes of android soldiers as the screen fades to black.
- Chainsaw Good: Several of the Naytiba designs feature chainsaws in one fashion or another. For example, the Stalker first seen in the 2021 gameplay reveal trailer and present as a Super Boss in the demo boasts a biological, bone-teethed chainsaw head it is more than happy to tear up Eve with. Likewise, the Belial Naytiba shown in the former dual-wields chainswords.
- Counter-Attack: Some of the earliest but most important skills EVE can unlock are counter attacks that she can do when she pulls off a perfect parry or dodge. Not only do these reduce an enemy's poise, they also stun them for much longer than a regular attack and will often provide bonuses to EVE, such as increased damage or faster attack speeds, encouraging the player to perform longer, more damaging combos.
- Cyborg: Several characters are cyborgs such as EVE and Orcal.
- Driven to Suicide: In Eidos 7, a legionnaire is found dead, having killed himself in despair at the failure of the opening battle."EVE Protocol? Airborne Squad? Angel? All a bunch of bollocks! It's a show that Mother Sphere puts on. They don't help us. Mother Sphere doesn't care about us. I was such a pathetic fool to wait for that so-called salvation. I have no more regrets."
- Eldritch Abomination: The Naytiba (previously "NA:tives"). These creatures infested Earth, forcing humankind to evacuate the planet. Eve is one of the few people capable of fighting Naytiba, and is specifically tasked with eliminating the Elder Naytiba.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The announcement trailer shows that the massive parasite that engulfed the station EVE was on has eyeballs everywhere on it, including on its eyeballs.
- Floral Theme Naming: Other than Lily, in the Chinese version, EVE is named after the lotus, while Tachy is named after catalpa, connecting all three to white-to-pink flowers.
- Genki Girl: Unlike the ever-levelheaded EVE, Lily is typically upbeat and energetic, wearing her heart on her sleeve and freely expressing her feelings.
- Genre Mashup: Looks to combine elements of the Souls-like RPG games like Sekiro with those of Stylish Action games like NieR: Automata and Bayonetta.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Signs in-game appear in a number of different languages (including Chinese and Russian, as well as the expected English, even in closely connected areas), and some text and codes appear which use the Greek alphabet, with extensive use and reference to 'beta'.
- Immune to Flinching: One skill unlocked early on allows EVE to make the last input of any combo string have this property, allowing them to forgo having to stop it to parry or dodge and instead just finish the combo.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Xion, instead of the more conventionally spelled Zion.
- Jiggle Physics: In abundance. EVE's every move causes her breasts to bounce, but it's not limited to her. Tachy, Lily and Raven all get in on the action as well.
- Lag Cancel: Unlike other similar games, Stellar Blade allows more moments for players to cancel out of an animation to parry or dodge an attack. Specifically, the initial startup animation of every attack can be canceled into a parry or dodge, but not the actual active and recovery parts of the animation.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: EVE sports a very long and wafting pony-tail which flutters down to her knees.
- Lucky Charms Title: Not present in the game's title, but early promotional material referred to the Naytiba as the "NA:tives", complete with the colon.
- Made of Iron: Much of the preview trailers show that EVE takes powerful blows and still fights on. Notably, getting knocked through a window on the station into space itself doesn't seem to affect her.
- Male Gaze: Promotional material is unashamed to show off EVE's every curve as she battles her parasitic enemies. The way the camera lingers on Eve's assets during gameplay and cutscenes could make the case that the game is built on this.
- Ms. Fanservice: EVE definitely counts, as her suit does absolutely nothing to hide her very voluptuous curves.
- New Meat: EVE may be a cyborg supersoldier but she's fresh out of training.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: Guardians and Heavy Guardians pretend to be statues until a victim gets close or are attacked. They tend to hide among their petrified comrades from previous battles against the Naytiba.
- No Flow in CGI: Thoroughly averted for Eve's ponytail. It flutters and flows freely, including falling forward over either shoulder when she moves backwards or turns and briefly curling around limbs when she tumbles, and seems to be animated almost by the strand to the point it'll separate into multiple locks at times. The only blatant unrealistic part is the hair apparently being frictionless, as even at full length her ponytail never actually gets tangled around anything or tied in knots.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: All of humanity is dead, having all been exterminated by Mother Sphere and replaced with the Andro-Eidos, with the exception of Adam.
- Robot Girl: The release date trailer shows that a robotic woman is among the denizens of Earth.
- Sensual Spandex:
- Trailers often showcase EVE's skintight suit. Slightly downplayed in that she gets a non-revealing jacket as well. The release date trailer shows she will be able to take on a multitude of clothing options, both revealing and comparatively modest.
- One of EVE's suit options is the Skin Suit, which removes her armor and has her strutting around in a skin-colored bodysuit covered by a thin exoskeleton, giving her the appearance of implied nudity. It also disables the Shield, making the game much more difficult.
- The demo shows her in Painted-On Pants and a red long-sleeved blouse. The gloss on the former can give the impression that they have no seat.
- Sole Survivor: Everyone in the 7th Airborne is wiped out in the first ten minutes of the game except for EVE, who has to carry on the mission alone.
- Stripperiffic: It depends on the outfit she’s wearing. EVE does not dress modestly by default. Her default outfit is a Latex Space Suit studded with hexagonal armor pieces/shield generators that does precisely nothing to hide her figure; the unlockable Skin Suit is that same kind of space suit sans armor and colored the same as her skin, which makes her look naked. Her civilian attire looks like a coat of paint from the waist down and she has quite a bit of costumes that show off her body. She does have the option to wear more modest clothing with some of her other outfits, however, with some of them completely covering her up like the Daily Biker, Daily Sailor, Fluffy Bear, and Sporty Yellow costumes.
- Super-Soldier: EVE and all her fellow 7th Airborne Squadron warriors are bionically enhanced to be able to fight the Naytiba.
- Swiss-Army Gun: EVE's scanner drone can transform into a gun with various modes like a machine gun, rocket launcher, shotgun and a laser for the really tough enemies.
- Sword Beam: One of EVE's Beta skills is the ability to fire waves of energy from her sword to zap enemies at a distance.
- Tomato in the Mirror: After some investigation on Earth, EVE finds out to her dismay that she and the rest of the Colony aren't original humans, but instead a race of androids that replaced humanity after Mother Sphere exterminated them. Even worse, the Naytiba are actually the descendants of humans who resorted to extreme genetic modification to survive, meaning EVE and her fellow Airborne Squad soldiers have been slaughtering the humans they believed they were protecting all this time.
- Variable Mix: As showcased in the demo, the background music for areas like Eidos 7 have two different versions, a calmer, more subdued mix for exploring the area, and a more intense mix for fighting enemies.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Though occasionally present in the flesh, Adam serves this function on the field, communicating to EVE via his drone. Lily also chips in when she joins later on.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The general premise given by the trailers of an action game where a beautiful woman fights in post-apocalyptic Earth against alien invaders for the survival of the remnants of humanity is not too unlike the framework of NieR: Automata, as well as their other game Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, which is also heavily inspired by Automata and outright had a crossover event with it where 2B could be acquired in NIKKE.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the ending where EVE decides to fuse with Adam, Mother Sphere personally congratulates EVE for successfully eliminating the Naytiba. However, since EVE has now fulfilled her purpose and is now a threat to Mother Sphere, she turns on EVE and her army after her.
