On your PC, the game Stellar Blade has just been released, and it’s one of Sony’s top-notch ports to date. The game runs smoothly even at high settings, maintaining steady frame rates and providing upscaling options if you require some assistance. Interestingly, it performs remarkably well on Steam Deck as well, albeit with a slight reduction in resolution. Despite this, you can still enjoy a consistent 30fps for most parts of the game.
The robot invasion
If you didn’t play Stellar Blade when it debuted in 2024 or read our review, the game offers a familiar post-apocalyptic sci-fi narrative. The main character, Eve, is an android designed for combat and part of an army sent to reclaim Earth from the Naytiba, a mysterious, monstrous race that drove humans off the planet. You’ll encounter elements like a mysterious past, betrayals, predictable plot twists, and Eve’s wide-eyed wonder at things like cities and rain, which are foreign to her. Stellar Blade isn’t trying to tell an unprecedented story.
Stellar Blade can manage with an adequate narrative that provides a reason for the combat, but its main flaw lies in its self-importance, given its average storyline. It prolongs scenes unnecessarily to build tension, making dialogues longer than necessary and stretching out cutscenes like when a ramp is extended from a ship, holding the camera for several seconds. The science fiction aspect presented by Shift Up lacks enough novelty or intrigue to justify such focus, causing non-action sequences to feel tedious.
The characters in Stellar Blade seem flat and not well-developed. To compensate for this lack of personality, the creators focused on making them physically appealing, but they still fall short of being engaging or interesting. Bayonetta from Platinum Games may come off as over-the-top, but her exaggerated sexuality is an integral part of her character and even influences her combat style. In contrast, Eve doesn’t seem to have a clear sense of self, and it’s questionable if she even acknowledges the role her body plays in defining who she is.
Stellar Blade’s combat is anything but dull, finding itself in a unique space between Dark Souls and Devil May Cry. Unlike most characters, Eve begins with a variety of basic attack sequences that alter based on input timing, and she has the ability to counterattack, filling an energy bar for more potent, damaging abilities. Some attacks can’t be countered and instead demand precise dodges, and there’s often an environmental feature that Eve can exploit in combat. What sets it apart is the usefulness of skill trees, offering beneficial passive effects rather than typical enhancements such as increased attack power or an extra hit at the end of a combo – making it a refreshing change for 2020 action games.
Stellar Blade’s adversaries are universally powerful and diverse, spanning from bizarre to grotesque and downright daunting, yet most ordinary battles lean towards being easy. Shift Up primarily uses numerical superiority instead of designing enemies with distinct attack patterns, though it compensates for the somewhat monotonous periods with some truly remarkable boss fights.
What’s new in Stellar Blade’s PC port
In its PC adaptation, Stellar Blade retains many accessibility features from the original, such as an option to automatically pass quick-time events. A notable enhancement is the ability to deactivate puzzle timers entirely, which was previously only possible to prolong their duration. Additionally, customization options for controllers, mouse, and keyboard have been added for a more personalized gaming experience. Although this doesn’t address the ongoing issue of the PlayStation Access controller not being easily compatible with Steam, it still offers some assistance.
Regarding the upscaling features, Stellar Blade’s PC version offers frame generation, resolution boost, and sharpening from Nvidia and AMD. While sharpening and super resolution work efficiently, frame generation’s input delay makes it less practical for this specific scenario. In my personal use, I found that Stellar Blade is so optimized that you can typically reduce the graphics settings a bit, accept a lower frame rate, and still achieve satisfactory results without needing to resort to frame generation.
The exceptional aspect of this port is its smooth performance, even at maximum settings. I managed to maintain a consistent 120fps with only occasional minor drops, which is quite remarkable given the intense action in many of Stellar Blade’s battles during the mid-game and beyond. This is truly an impressive feat.
How does Stellar Blade run on Steam Deck?
In the past year or so, many games have been experiencing issues running smoothly on the Steam Deck. However, Stellar Blade is an exception to this trend, except for one detail. The game has its own graphics settings specifically tailored for the Steam Deck, which primarily consist of low settings for most aspects and occasional medium settings. It’s worth noting that the resolution is fixed at 720p on the Steam Deck and other handheld PCs. You can adjust the frame rate cap to suit your preferences, with a maximum of 45fps achieved during testing, but a more comfortable experience was found at 30fps without any dips, even in intense combat scenarios involving explosions and multiple enemies.
From my perspective as a devoted fan, I’ve got to admit that Stellar Blade seems slightly hazy when played at 720p. It’s not quite as blurry as The Witcher 3 on Switch, but it’s still noticeable even in tight spaces. However, the game’s striking visual design ensures it maintains a cool and trendy look, even at lower resolutions. In an action-packed game like this one, smooth performance outweighs resolution in importance. Moreover, you can tweak the AMD Super Resolution settings to sharpen things a bit without altering the graphics settings and potentially losing frames.
How does Stellar Blade run on Asus ROG Ally?
On the Asus ROG Ally, Stellar Blade typically achieves and holds a consistent frame rate of around 45fps at 1080p resolution. However, the efficiency of this performance depends on the specific model you’re using. The Ally X model can achieve this at the 17-watt power mode with low graphics settings, although it may experience occasional stuttering. Boosting the power to 25-watts allows for medium settings, such as character textures, ambient occlusion, and lighting, while still maintaining a frame rate of 45fps. Unfortunately, the standard ROG Ally struggles in its 15-watt mode, but you can still get decent results by switching to the 25-watt mode.
On Asus’ handheld devices like Stellar Blade, the game occasionally encounters problems when you put the device to sleep and then wake it up again. These issues may include crashing or forcing a system restart. It’s less than optimal, and while it didn’t happen every time the device was in sleep mode, it never occurred on the Steam Deck.
Stellar Blade represents a refreshing shift for Sony PC ports, as it avoids the common issue of game-crashing bugs at launch and delivers solid performance on various systems, including older machines, less powerful devices, and even Steam Deck. Unlike other recent high-profile releases verified for the Steam Deck, Stellar Blade stands out in this regard. While it’s not a revolutionary sci-fi adventure, if you’re interested in playing it and don’t own a PS5 or prefer a portable gaming experience, the PC version is your best choice.
For this review, I was given a PC version of Stellar Blade, which you can purchase right away on Steam.
Read More
2025-06-13 16:28