Frantic action adventure 'Stellar Blade' demo coming this week

Stellar Blade, the Devil May Cry and Bayonetta-inspired action-adventure game, is getting a free demo this Friday (March 29).

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Hyung Tae Kim, the game director of Stellar Blade, penned a post on the PlayStation Blog confirming the news. The demo will take players from the start of the game through to the first boss fight.

Kim wrote that it will “help you familiarize yourself with basic combat features as you explore post-war Eidos 7, a human city now infested by the Naytiba, giving you an early grasp of gameplay mechanics that will serve you throughout the game’s story.”

Originally named Project EVE, Stellar Blade follows protagonist Eve, a member of the 7th Airborne Squad tasked with reclaiming a futuristic Earth from a robotic threat known as the Naytiba. So far, gameplay videos have focused on her acrobatic combat skills, evoking the likes of Dante and Bayonetta.

Technically, Kim promises “smooth 60fps combat [and] haptics” delivered via the DualSense, as well as “various charms of the game that you can only confidently appreciate through hands-on experience.”

As well as “a little surprise included for players who complete the first stage,” Kim also states that progress made in the demo will carry over to the full game when it launches on April 26.

Stellar Blade is being developed by Shift Up and published by Sony. It’s a PS5 exclusive, but as many of those have been making their way to PC, there’s hope it could come to other platforms sometime post-launch. The game also takes inspiration from Sekiro, with players having to learn enemy attack patterns so they can dodge and parry at the right times.

In other news, Dragon’s Dogma 2 players have encountered a game mechanic that has the power to wipe entire towns off the map by killing most of the NPCs in them, even essential quest-givers.