Starfield

Stellar Blade is a 2024 action-adventure game developed by Shift Up and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Players take control of the protagonist, Eve, as she embarks on a mission to save humanity from a relentless war against the Naytibas in a distant future. Throughout her journey, Eve is joined by her squad and other survivors as they fight to reclaim Earth.

Shift Up, a Korean studio founded by Kim Hyung-tae, first teased the game in 2019 under the working title Project Eve. By 2021, it was announced as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, to be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. In 2022, the game was officially named Stellar Blade.

After being delayed from its original 2023 release, Stellar Blade was launched for the PlayStation 5 on April 26, 2024. A Windows version was released on June 11, 2025. The game received acclaim from critics, who praised its visuals and combat, though some criticism was aimed at the story. By June 2025, it had sold over 3 million units.

Gameplay

Stellar Blade is an action-adventure video game set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, played from a third-person perspective. The combat system emphasizes understanding enemy attack patterns and countering them with precise timing. Eve's Beta Gauge fills as players successfully parry and evade in combat. The Beta Gauge can be used for skills like piercing super armor and interrupting enemy combos. Eve also possesses a Burst Gauge, which fills through successive parries and combos, allowing players to activate buffs and execute powerful attacks. The game makes use of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller, utilizing its haptic feedback to enhance the feel of enemy attacks and weapon accuracy. Exploration mechanics include wall scaling and rope swinging to traverse the environment, with rewards like extra costumes to be found. The overworld is populated with NPCs who offer side quests, which the player can choose to accept or ignore.

Synopsis

Setting

The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has been forced to abandon Earth after losing a war against monstrous creatures known as the Naytibas. In an effort to reclaim their home, Eve and her squad are deployed from the Colony to fight the Naytibas and retake Earth. Along the way, Eve encounters two survivors, Adam and Lily, and eventually settles in Xion, the last surviving human city on Earth. Eve then establishes contact with Orcal, an elder, and begins forming relationships with the residents of Xion, all in pursuit of her mission to save humanity and reclaim Earth.

In Brief

In a post-apocalyptic future, Eve, an elite Andro-Eidos soldier from the Colony, is deployed with the 7th Airborne Squad to Earth to fight the monstrous Naytiba. The mission fails; Eve survives but loses her friend Tachy in the attack. Rescued by Adam, a scavenger, Eve is led to the ruined city of Eidos 7 to recover a Hyper Cell, which powers the last human city, Xion. Along the way, she meets Lily, a fellow soldier and engineer. Xion's leader Orcal reveals that more Hyper Cells and Alpha Naytiba Cores are needed to power the city and reach the Naytiba’s Nest, where their leader, the Elder Naytiba, resides. As Eve defeats Alpha Naytibas and gathers their cores, she discovers that the Naytibas are actually evolved humans, transformed to resist extermination by Mother Sphere, the AI that now rules the Colony. Eve also learns that the Andro-Eidos — including herself — are androids created by Mother Sphere to replace humanity, and their war is built on a lie. Eve kills a corrupted Tachy(now an Alpha Naytiba), learns the truth from Raven, a disillusioned former soldier, and fights Demogorgon, failing to retrieve its core. Orcal, revealed to be a hybrid Alpha Naytiba, sacrifices himself to create the Master Core, unlocking access to the Nest. Inside the Nest, Eve discovers Adam is actually Raphael Marks, the scientist who created Mother Sphere and the Naytibas. He wants to fuse with Eve to create a new humanity. Endings diverge based on Eve’s choice, her relationship with Lily, and whether she recovered the Iberis code.

Plot

The Colony sends the 7th Airborne Squad in its latest attempt to liberate Earth from the Naytiba. However, the invasion ends in disaster, with Eve being the sole survivor of the landing force. Her close friend, Tachy, sacrifices herself to protect Eve from an unidentified Alpha Naytiba. Eve is rescued by Adam, a scavenger who enlists her help in recovering a Hyper Cell power source from the ruined megacity of Eidos 7. In exchange, Adam leads Eve to a nearby Alpha Naytiba for her to kill. After eliminating the Alpha Naytiba, Eve encounters Lily, a survivor of the 5th Airborne Squad, who decides to join her as engineering support. Adam then takes them both to Xion, the last human city on Earth, and requests their assistance in saving it. Eve meets Xion's leader, Orcal, who explains that, in addition to the Hyper Cell she recovered from Eidos 7, three more Hyper Cells are needed to restore Xion to full functionality. This would not only allow him to revive the tens of thousands of humans kept in stasis within the city, but also to locate other Alpha Naytibas. Orcal further explains that four Alpha Naytiba Cores are required to form a Master Core, which will provide access to the Naytibas' Nest, where their leader, the Elder Naytiba, resides.

After recovering the second Hyper Cell, Orcal informs Eve of the location of the second Alpha Core. She is devastated upon learning that Tachy has been transformed into an Alpha Naytiba, forcing her to kill Tachy and retrieve her core. After recovering the third Hyper Cell, the team uncovers a recording from a former Airborne Squad member named Raven. Raven claims that what they currently believe to be humanity is, in fact, a race of advanced human-like androids called Andro-Eidos, and that the Naytibas are the original human race, which resorted to radical genetic modification. Orcal confirms that long ago, their leader, the AI Mother Sphere, created the Andro-Eidos at humanity's request, and both races coexisted peacefully. However, Mother Sphere unexpectedly ordered the Andro-Eidos to exterminate humanity and rewrote history to deceive the Andro-Eidos into believing they are humans. Meanwhile, the surviving humans went into hiding and eventually transformed themselves into Naytibas to fight back against Mother Sphere and the Andro-Eidos. Despite being shocked by the revelation that she has been killing the descendants of humanity, Eve remains determined to end the war by killing the Elder Naytiba.

Eve learns from Orcal that the third Alpha core is located atop a space elevator. Before they can break in, Adam receives troubling news from Xion and departs, leaving both Lily and Eve behind. After defeating the Alpha Naytiba Demogorgon, Eve fails to retrieve its Alpha core and is rescued by Lily, who sends a signal to the Colony to dispatch the powered exoskeleton Providence to assist in her return to Earth. They return to Xion, only to find it under attack by the Naytiba. Eve and Lily rush back to defend the city, and Eve faces the same unidentified Alpha Naytiba that had attacked her and killed Tachy. After defeating the creature and retrieving its core, she is shocked to discover its true identity as Raven. Raven manages to escape, while Eve tends to Orcal. Orcal reveals that he is also an Alpha Naytiba, a fusion of Andro-Eidos and Naytiba technology. With only three Alpha Cores in Eve’s possession, Orcal sacrifices himself by using his own Alpha Core to create the Master Core. Before passing away, he urges Eve to meet the Elder Naytiba. Eve and Lily then head for the Nest, where they find a final recording from Raven. In the recording, Raven reveals her disillusionment upon learning that Mother Sphere not only exterminated the original humans but also devastated Earth's surface by ejecting large parts of the Colony from orbit to prevent the Naytiba from completely overrunning the planet.

Upon reaching the entrance of the Nest, Eve encounters Raven, who attempts to prevent her from entering. However, Eve manages to defeat Raven, leaving her disabled but alive. Eve and Lily then enter the Nest, only to uncover Adam's true identity as Raphael Marks, the scientist who created the Mother Sphere, and the Elder Naytiba who designed the Naytibas, which plunged the world into conflict with the Andro-Eidos and Humanity wars. Adam reveals that he has come to regret creating the Naytiba, as it resulted in the sacrifice of their humanity. He also acknowledges that, as androids lacking human DNA, the Andro-Eidos cannot be the true successors of humanity due to their inability to evolve. To remedy this, Adam proposes to fuse himself with Eve, thereby becoming the next step in human evolution, which would eliminate the threat of the Naytiba and offer humanity a chance at a new future. The ending diverges based on Eve's choices and previous actions.

• If Eve refuses to accept Adam's plan, the two are forced to battle each other, with Eve ultimately prevailing. Adam dies along with the last hope for humanity, and Mother Sphere welcomes Eve and Lily back to the Colony now that their mission is complete.

• If Eve accepts Adam's plan, the two of them fuse to create an entirely new type of human being. Mother Sphere then overrides Lily's power armor and commands it to attack Eve, forcing her to defend herself. Eve prevails, with Lily surviving or dying depending on whether Eve has maximum affection with her.

• If Eve hasn't reached maximum affection with Lily, Lily will die. Mother Sphere then arrives and congratulates Eve for eliminating the Elder Naytiba as planned. However, with no further use for her, Mother Sphere sends an army to destroy Eve, and the game ends with her fighting against an endless horde of Andro-Eidos soldiers.

• If Lily's relationship has reached maximum affection and the Iberis code has been recovered from Lily's Atelier in Eidos 9, Lily hacks the robot with the Iberis code and ejects herself to safety. Eve manages to completely annihilate the army Mother Sphere sends at her. Lily then delivers the fourth and final Hyper Cell to Xion, fully restoring the city while Eve becomes its new protector.