Stellar Blade PC Review: Stellar as Ever

When Stellar Blade was released on the PlayStation 5, we called it “a culmination of a great fashion designer’s wardrobe and a ‘souls-like’ veteran’s wildest fantasies”. More than a year later, it still rings true for its newly released PC counterpart, which has arrived in the best shape possible, and on the best game store for PC master race – Steam, with no regional restrictions standing in its way to success.

Stellar Blade is a critically acclaimed third-person hack-and-slash post-apocalyptic action adventure sci-fi game that was released on April 26th, 2025, as a PlayStation 5 exclusive. It was finally released on PC on 16th June 2025 via Steam and Epic Games Store.

An Angel From The Colony

Stellar Blade is set in a dystopian future where humanity teeters on the brink of extinction. The remnants of civilization have sought refuge in a distant haven known as the Colony while waging a prolonged war against the Naytibas, an alien race whose origins remain shrouded in mystery.

You assume the role of Eve, an Angel from the Colony’s 9th Airborne unit dispatched to Earth as part of one of the numerous expeditions aimed at liberating it from the control of the Naytibas. However, the mission takes a disastrous turn when the entire expedition is annihilated upon landing. Eve becomes the sole survivor and is rescued by Adam, a resident of Xion, the last remaining human city on Earth. Alongside Adam and Lily, a survivor from the previous expeditions, Eve embarks on a mission to confront the root of the threat—the Alpha Naytibas.

Overall, the game maintains a relatively straightforward narrative while placing significant emphasis on its presentation, effectively compensating for the lack of depth and complexity in the storyline. The game’s background score is phenomenal and makes even small moments of strolling through its deserted maps feel resonating. Additionally, it features three endings, two of which are highly impactful. By the time the credits roll, the game encourages players to embark on another playthrough to explore the alternative endings. As of now the game has also received voiceovers in other languages besides Korean and English, especially the Japanese audio which deserves a noteworthy mention.

While I enjoyed the game when it was released on PS5, having completed it three times now, I must acknowledge that its narrative, though decent, falls short of the memorable impact seen in titles like Nier Automata or PlayStation classics such as Death Stranding, The Last of Us, Uncharted, or God of War. The development team at Shift Up is undoubtedly aware of this. Given their immense talent, I believe that the sequel to Eve’s journey will address this aspect effectively.

Stellar Presentation and Fan Service

Since its initial release on PS5, Stellar Blade has received many free updates, quality of life changes, and collaborative DLC expansions from Nier Automata and Nikke: Goddess of Victory, a title developed by Shift Up themselves. All the updates are available in the PC release, making it a much better package than it was over a year ago. Still considering the sort amount of content its DLCs have, these may feel a tad bit pricey. Still considering how fighting games have been charging us ten dollars per outfit for years, it seems fair.

The combat, while retaining its core mechanics, has undergone significant improvements to dodge and parry windows, creating a more refined experience compared to its initial release. Eve’s transformation of her hairpin into a double-edged sword, combined with stylized movesets embedded in her dodges, delivers pure fanservice and imparts a sense of elegance to the game’s combat. It remains appropriately challenging, providing a rewarding experience, particularly during the intense boss battles. The unlockable specials, along with the Beta and Body Cell upgrades, ensure Eve never feels excessively powerful, requiring players to strategically utilize every ranged and melee attack to succeed.

Besides combat there is one part that the game seemingly struggles a bit when it comes to parkour and level design similar to the climbing sections present in this year’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Sometimes it can get quite frustrating especially in its Great desert map and linear levels featured in the game’s late hours.

When it comes to fan service, there is no title that can hold a candle to Stellar Blade and I don’t think it will ever be dethroned in this aspect until its sequel comes out. Its initial roster of 50- 60 outfits for Eve has surpassed over 130 and the majority of the these can be obtained for free and requires you take on challenges and side-quests to get them. Collecting cans, catching fishes , helping out key NPCs and beating the bosses in the Boss Rush mode, nearly everything in the game ties to unlocking a stellar outfit or an accessory. And that sense of accomplishment is only deepened by Eve’s poses when she catches a fish or gets a can. While other games try to tone on this aspect because of its lewdness or sexy appeal for that matter, Stellar Blade wears it as a badge of honor as it should.

With Great Tech Comes Great Features

Stellar Blade on PS5 runs really well, delivering a smooth 60 fps experience at 1440p resolution. On PC it comes with upscaling support with DLSS 4, FSR 3 and XeSS along with frame-gen and features to reduce input lag. The DLSS 4 upscaling is easily the best and helps the game run really well even on weaker entry level GPUs like the RTX 3050 and 3060. With FSR 3 it can even run on much older GPUs like the GTX 1060.

But there is one small catch – the amount of VRAM. As it states on its steam page, the game requires a minimum of GTX 1060 with 6GB VRAM to run properly. And in my multiple hours of testing, still stood out to be true as the expected VRAM usage of the game relatively remains quite heavy. To check this properly, I tested this on my RTX 3050Ti laptop GPU which stronger than the GTX 1060 but only has 4GB of VRAM.

In the opening hours of the game, especially in the ruins of Eidos 7, despite the high VRAM usage the textures on medium to high preset load properly but the frame drops to low 20-30s while switching to a different area as the VRAM buffers get maxed out. Setting the textures to low-medium fixes this issue to some extent. But it again turns in a major issue while exploring the map of Wasteland which is just outside of Xion. Recompiling the shaders fixes this to some extent. If you want to play on higher resolutions like 1440p with very high preset, the VRAM usage goes beyond 11 GB to match the exquisite texture details that it has on PS5. VRAM issues aside, it really is one of the best PC ports ever made and goes show how well optimized games should be.

Real Talk

Stellar Blade on PC is a stellar port of a stellar game, that brings all the quality of life improvements, additional content and latest upscaling features. It’s challenging combat, stellar presentation, countless fashionable outfits and astounding soundtracks make it one of the best games released on PC this year. A few technical issues aside, it is a must play title for the fans of Soulsike and sci-fi genre.

FINAL SCORE: 90/100