Shift Up Corporation, the creators of Stellar Blade, has announced that the April 26, 2024, release will be uncensored in all regions, including the Japanese version. The announcement was made through a post on the game’s official X account. The post read, “Stellar Blade offers the same uncensored version in all countries, including the Japanese version”.
Hopefully, the announcement puts an end to the fuss from players who claimed that the PlayStation exclusive had regional variations tied to censorship. Following a controversial review from IGN, Shift Up released a demo of the game on March 29 which gave players around 40 minutes of experience into the game. It was revealed that player’s progress in the demo would be carried over to the game if they choose to purchase it.
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Stellar Blade’s demo became almost twice as popular as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s demo. In a post on April 10, the game’s official X account claimed that some players had sunk over 50 hours into the game, joking that players should “please go easy on the demo”.
We're so grateful for your love of our game❤️ To enjoy the main game properly though, please go easy on the demo. 50+ hours of demo play…we're scared!😱#StellarBlade #PS5 #Trial #ThankYou pic.twitter.com/L8Vyh9AAN5
— StellarBlade (@StellarBlade) April 10, 2024
Ampere Analysis, a market research firm, said the demo attracted a peak of 690,000 daily active users. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo (which is also a timed PS5 exclusive) attracted a peak of 380,000 daily active users. After release, FF7 Rebirth attracted 2.2 million daily active players. It will be interesting to see the peak active players of the Shift Up debut game would be after April 26.
“The hype surrounding Stellar Blade – largely focused on its character models – may have resulted in inflated interest in the demo, and the rate of conversion to paying, launch users could fall short of what we have seen for its competitors,” opined Louise Wooldridge, Ampere’s research manager for games.
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“Despite some similarities in genre, style, and therefore potential audience, Stellar Blade and FFVII Rebirth represent quite different commercial cases. FFVII Rebirth is based on an established classic with a deep-rooted fandom – plus, it is a sequel, rather than a standalone game.
“It is therefore unlikely that quite as many demo players were drawn simply by curiosity or hype, and conversion in that case is likely to be more predictable, and hearty. Stellar Blade, on the other hand, is a brand-new IP with no pre-existing fandom, making its performance a great deal more difficult to project.”
Shift Up CEO reveals Stellar Blade DLC plans
Shift Up CEO Kim Hyung Tae recently sat with the South Korean site Ruliweb to discuss Stellar Blade DLC. Tae said that the game will get a New Game Plus mode after launch. He also announced that Stellar Blade will get free cosmetic bundles for the game’s protagonist, Eve.
The base game already has around 30 outfits, which feels like a lot already. This will make Stellar Blade one of the third-person action adventures with the most protagonist outfits. Tae also mentioned that the game will not have any microtransactions at release.
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“We would like to make it clear here that Stellar Blade does not require any additional expenses that gamers are not aware of other than the cost of purchasing the package,” Tae said.
Stellar Blade vs Nier series comparison
There has been a comparison between Stellar Blade and the Nier series. However, in a recent interview with IGN Japan, Nier: Automata director Yoko Taro and Tae, Taro praised the team that worked on Stellar Blade.
“Stellar Blade is such an amazing game, I think it’s much better than Nier: Automata,” Taro said.
When Taro was asked to explain further he said Stellar Blade’s graphics “have reached a completely new generation of quality,” and told Tae he was jealous the game “shows that you have your own company and are working with like-minded people”.
