Well, it took all the way until Black Friday, but at long last Stellar Blade is finally on sale on the PlayStation Store.
The discount is knocking the price down to $50 from the full cost of $70 which it has been since its launch back in April, a sale that runs through December 2. It also comes in the wake of the game’s nominations at The Game Awards for Best Action Game and Best Soundtrack.
By default Stellar Blade will lose Best Action Game to Black Myth: Wukong, given that game is nominated for GOTY while nothing else in the category is (this remains a very dumb part of The Game Awards), but I would personally argue it’s better. Stellar Blade is probably in my top 3 games of 2024, and I’d consider it one of the year’s best especially if we aren’t counting expansions like Shadow of the Erdtree on end of year lists (I’m not going to).
The discourse around Stellar Blade has been entirely inescapable on the internet, with it being considered a “win” for gamers pushing for more traditionally attractive women in games. While that’s certainly true of its lead, Eve, this is a game for anyone who really enjoys solid action titles, and it’s a whole lot of fun. I am extremely impressed with this game coming from SHIFTUP, where this is the first AAA game they’ve ever made, and they really knocked it out of the park. Even with limited distribution on PS5 alone, sales have been great, and expansions and a sequel is in the works. It really does feel like Stellar Blade is poised to be the current era’s Bayonetta, in more ways than one.
There are also very, very direct links to a game like Nier Automata, which has led us to this month where Stellar Blade has launched an elaborate paid crossover with Nier, as the game’s are not only very similar in many ways, but the creators of each are friends and love each other’s games. That pack, which includes a lot of outfits and other cosmetics, costs $10, so you could pick that up along with the $50 game and it would still cost less than it did originally. But obviously you’re probably going to want to play before you shell out for more costumes. Though hey, if you do it early, you could play the entire game as 2B.
I ended up putting probably 60+ hours into Stellar Blade across two playthroughs, as the game added a really solid NG+ mode with significant upgrades that made it worth running through again. It constantly adds new things like costumes, but also added a boss rush and now recently, much to the delight of fans, a photo mode.
I really do recommend it a lot as one of the year’s best games, and certainly one of the year’s best action games, even if it doesn’t take home that Game Awards trophy.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
