Following Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade marks a streak in Sony published games that actually stand out from all the rest of them. Now how do these two stand out you might ask? My answer would be that they are made by people who are proud to make games.

The most popular PlayStation exclusives since the launch of the PS5 have been The Last of Us Part 2, God of War Ragnarök, and Spider-Man 2. When they want to be a good game they can be good. But there are very frequent moments where they completely take control away from the player and become basically a tv show or something. I’m not talking about cutscenes, I’m talking about those moments where it’s just you following someone for some exposition for like 20 minutes. This shows that many in charge of those game’s development would rather be making something else. That they’re ashamed to be making a game. Shift Up is a team of developers who truly appreciate video games and what they’re meant to be.

Stellar Blade shines brightest with its combat, exploration, soundtrack, and art direction. The high octane burst of energy you get when you charge at an enemy and pelt them with a flurry of attacks is unmatched, while still not feeling overpowered as Eve really is quite the glass cannon. Fights are always a good time. I never really found myself trying to outright avoid a confrontation, they’re that fun.

Exploration harkens back to something like Super Mario Odyssey with it’s open areas, minimal invisible walls, and Eve’s acrobatic skills, but that’s not to say exploring the linear areas is boring, far from it. This game uses the dreaded yellow paint incredibly well by having it grab your attention away from the beaten path and towards something that you may have seen just out of reach along the way. This is probably the best use of yellow paint I’ve seen in any game actually.

The soundtrack is full of incredible tracks that elevate each of their accompanying moments into something truly special and memorable with its combination of synthetic beats and live orchestral performances. It won’t be surprising at all to see this pop up as a lot of people’s best soundtracks at the end of the year.

Now for art direction. This game is fucking gorgeous. Every character model and environment was so beautifully detailed and lush (the final few areas of the game are especially jaw dropping) that it actually blew my mind to see that this game maintain 60fps (aside from a few areas where if you stay for a while it’ll dip to like 40) across gameplay and cutscenes and is only like 30gb big and runs on Unreal engine. Many, MANY developers struggle to make their games under like 80gb on Unreal or anything else really while still looking and performing worse than this game. I really wanna know how Shift Up did it. They might just have optimization skills great enough to rival Nintendo. Also yes Eve is very attractive, but I found my favorite outfits to be the ones that incorporated much more casual clothing. All of them are great, though. Makes me think they got actual fashion designers to work on them.

I gotta agree with the general public here though. The story and characters are the weakest parts, but they still kept things engaging with some great twists and turns. Definitely keep a look out for text logs and all that to get a better understanding and enjoyment out of the story.

Stellar Blade is an absolute triumph of a game. Shift Up clearly shows their inspirations, but they show them with pride and admiration while still making this game wholly unique. This feels like the first true game to make actual use of next generation (we’re almost 4 years in actually. Might as well call it current generation) hardware and is a must play for anyone who is a fan of games being great.