Latest news with #Bayonetta
The Hindu
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Stellar Blade PC — killer fashion on your screen
Do you hear a faint cheer in the distance? That is the sound of modders (a person who makes modifications especially to computer hardware or software) across the world rejoicing as Stellar Blade, and its glamorous protagonist Eve, finally arrive on PC. While you, the player, get to save the world at a buttery 144Hz, the modding community is already working on cooking up some alternative wardrobe choices. If you have somehow missed the hype train, Stellar Blade is a high-octane action game that fuses the graceful combat of Bayonetta with the existential melancholy of Nier: Automata, all soaked in a hyper-stylised K-pop visual filter. It is a strange combination, but on the PC, does it really shine or just shimmer? Earth is no longer ours. Taken over by the mysterious Naytibas, a grotesque, otherworldly race that appeared from nowhere, its surface lies in ruins, forcing what is left of humanity to retreat underground or flee to orbit. Enter Eve, an elite soldier from Airborne Squad 7, launched from space as her entire fleet is wiped out mid-drop. As the sole survivor, she is alone, outgunned, and possibly overdressed. Armed with nothing but a sword, her mission is clear: reclaim the planet. What follows is a journey through crumbling cities and monster-infested wastelands, as Eve reconnects with the last scraps of humanity, uncovers the truth behind the Naytibas, and stylishly dismantles an army of terrifying bosses, all the while unlocking increasingly questionable battle outfits. From the jump, it is clear Stellar Blade is cosplaying Nier: Automata, swapping android existentialism for Naytiba nightmares, but keeping the same moodboard — haunting ruins and stoic heroines. The result feels like a greatest hits album of action game tropes, stitched together with confidence and a whole lot of style. It works, mostly. The difference is, Nier had real emotional weight beneath its glossy exterior. It asked big questions, told a layered story and delivered unforgettable characters. Stellar Blade, on the other hand, is more of a surface-level tribute. The characters are drop-dead gorgeous, the cutscenes are cinematic and technically flawless, but with a missing emotional core, save for that excellent opening hook. Eve is a good heroine, but with the costume angle, it seems to degrade the cast to mannequins dressed in aesthetic armour, strutting around in a post-apocalyptic catwalk. That said, not every game needs to make you cry into your controller. Like Bayonetta, Stellar Blade thrives on spectacle over substance and it absolutely delivers on that front. Just do not go in expecting a soul-searching quest. What you get instead is some of the slickest, sharpest combat of the year. At this point, Sekiro's parry mechanic is a copy paste staple across almost every new title. Clair Obscur turn-based systems thrived on it, almost comically so. The new Nioh's just joined the party, but Stellar Blade has been rocking the mechanic for a while, and Eve parries with style. The combat is a combination of timed parries, think Devil May Cry swordplay with the grace of Bayonetta with the addition of Mass Effect like skills, which you can trigger to unleash some damaging attacks. All of this works really well together, and over the months Shift UP has streamlined the battle systems and with the PC version, its action is way higher. Killing hellish aliens with style is even better with smooth decapitations and hair that never frizzes no matter how many monsters die in geysers of blood. The PC version of Stellar Blade is top notch, thanks to Sony's track record of excellent ports. If you have the right hardware, games such as the Horizon series are an absolute feast for the eyes. Stellar Blade PC is bristling with so much new technology support, even the latest frame generation if you have the newer Nvidia cards. Stellar Blade PC Publisher: Sony Developer: Shift Up Price: ₹4999 (approx on Steam) That said, it is even optimised for older cards and the game looks amazing on the Steam Deck and other PC based portables. This is good news for those looking at getting the new Xbox ROG handheld, that lets you play Steam games as well. The port-to-PC does not just bring high frame rates, it also comes with a fresh batch of costumes, including crossover outfits from Nikke and Nier: Automata. Yes, you can now slice through monstrosities as 2B herself, in a cosmic fashion crossover nobody saw coming, but everyone clicked on. And while the whole 'collect every questionable outfit' angle continues to dominate social media, what gets lost in the noise is that Stellar Blade is actually a solid action game. Its mechanics, combat flow, enemy design and moment-to-moment rhythm, deserve just as much virality as its wardrobe. The game has more than enough polish, precision, and creativity to stand on its own, but still seems to fall back on objectification to grab attention. What it could be selling — tight design, slick systems, and actual fun — is already more than enough to turn heads. If you are looking for an excellent action game with a really good character as its core, Stellar Blade hits all the right buttons. While it may feel like a patchwork blanket of all the games it is inspired by, you get to experience all those games through its glitzy K-coloured lens. It is especially good if you want to take this action game across your kitted-out rig to your portable Steam Deck for some action on the go.
Metro
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Stellar Blade's story is 'weak' admits director but there's a reason why
The director behind Stellar Blade has opened up about its shortcomings, as the action game tops three million sales worldwide. Despite the controversy around the design of its lead protagonist, Stellar Blade was one of the best surprises of last year. However, like other great action games in the same mould, à la Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, the story isn't exactly its strong suit – even though there are dramatic cut scenes scattered throughout, attempting to make some sort of sense of it all. Stellar Blade's director and Shift Up CEO, Kim Hyung-tae, has discussed the game's narrative during a new interview, where he openly admits that the story is 'weak'. Speaking in an interview with This Is Game, Hyung-tae was asked about the negative feedback levelled at Stellar Blade's narrative. 'I think it is true that the story is weak,' Hyung-tae replied (via machine translation). 'The game's core play system was completed relatively early, but the thing that held us back the most was the cut scenes. In an action game that carries the narrative, cut scenes play a very important role in storytelling. It is difficult to convey the entire story with action alone. 'That is why we have to carry the narrative through cut scenes, but at first, we tried to make a lot of settings and cut scenes.' Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. The director explained that planned cut scenes which provided more context on Stellar Blade's world were pulled during development, due to high production costs. 'In the early stages of development, we planned to include detailed settings such as the reason the main character changes clothes in the story,' he added. 'However, as production progressed, the cost of producing cutscenes became too much, and eventually, for the sake of efficiency, we had no choice but to reduce cut scenes that supplemented the world view or character narratives outside of the main plot. 'That's how we were barely able to complete the game. It's also because the development manpower pool or system for narrative-centred games has not yet been fully established in Korea.' The director hopes to present a 'sufficiently rich narrative' in the sequel, which is targeting a 2027 launch. Stellar Blade was originally going to receive story DLC, but as confirmed by Hyung-tae, these plans were rolled into the next game. 'As we were preparing the DLC, the volume grew more than expected, so we changed direction and proceeded with the next work,' he said. 'However, there have been many changes since then.' It's not really the quantity of cut scenes that's an issue though, but the quality, and ironically having to limit the number may have helped the game. So the idea of having more in the sequel is not necessarily something to be welcomed. Stellar Blade launched on PC last week and has already proven to be a big hit on the platform, sitting in the top five of Steam's most played games over the past 24 hours (via SteamDB). Over the weekend, the game racked up a 24 hour concurrent peak player count of 192,078, which is far higher than Sony's other published PC ports like God Of War Ragnarök (35,615) and Spider-Man (66,436) – although it's popularity is likely driven by its popularity in Asia. More Trending Recently, developer Shift Up announced Stellar Blade has surpassed three million units sold across PlayStation 5 and PC, with one million copies sold within three days on Steam alone. The PC version opens the floodgates to fan mods, something which Hyung-tae encourages, although he'd prefer to see fan creations which change the gameplay in some way. 'Since we don't provide official modding tools, it's hard to change the entire game, but we're looking forward to seeing mods that slightly change the way you enjoy the game,' he said. 'Of course, mods like new costumes or monster visuals are cool, but I think it would be really welcome if there were mods that expand the user's play experience itself.' Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: The Witcher 4 designed for PS5 and not PC after 'so many problems' scaling down MORE: Nintendo Switch 2 sales numbers smash records in the US and worldwide MORE: Red Dead Redemption 2 actor teases news this week as fans hope for Switch 2 port
SoraNews24
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- SoraNews24
A look at the cosplay of the 2025 Osaka Comic Con
Capes, canes, cowls, and crazy crotches converged at this Comic Con. As we reported earlier, Osaka Comic Con was held once again at Intex Osaka, bringing lots of stars and artists to this corner of Japan. This also meant it was time for cosplayers from all over the world to come together and show off their carefully crafted wear. Now a juggernaut of both comics and movies, Marvel characters figured prominently among costumed visitors. There was a whole multiverse of Deadpools to be seen, but this guy with heart-shaped eyes showed up first, so I'll give him top honors. ▼ Deadpool The entire Spiderverse also seemed to have shown up with webslingers of all shapes and sizes. ▼ You got your preppy and street Spider-Men… ▼ Standard Spider-Man… ▼ Sam Raimi Spider-Man 3 version black suit Spider-Man, suitably hanging out with the Black Widow… ▼ Spider-Woman and a rather jolly-looking Green Goblin Naturally, wherever Spider-Man is his greatest foes aren't too far behind. ▼ Doctor Octopus and Kingpin ▼ J. Jonah Jameson There were plenty of other Marvel characters out and about too, like this parent-child team who had their posing game down cold. ▼ Captain America and Red Hulk ▼ Infinity War Iron Man ▼ Ghost Rider's head flickered like a flame too, which was pretty cool. ▼ Yelena Belova and Bucky Barnes of the Thunderbolts* ▼ Reed Richards and Susan Storm of The Fantastic Four ▼ And we finally found someone the perfect height to be Wolverine. Meanwhile, the Dark Knight rises again to represent the DC cinematic universe, along with some villains. ▼ The Talon, Bane, Batman, and Catwoman ▼ The Riddler In close second to comic books, there was a huge number of Star Wars cosplayers with extremely intricate and accurate costumes. We saw most of them on stage with Daniel Logan in the previous article, but here are a couple I found that weren't there. ▼ Boba Fett ▼ At first I thought this Chewbacca was way too tall, but looked it up afterward and that does look about 2.3 meters (seven-foot-six). There were plenty of characters from the wide world of video games as well, with the Resident Evil series being a prominent source of inspiration. ▼ Lupo and Hunk ▼ Ada Wong ▼ Cloud from Final Fantasy VII ▼ Spamton Neo from Deltarune ▼ A Monster Hunter… and did I mention I'm a monster? ▼ A couple of Sam Bridges from Death Stranding ▼ Jamie, Chun-Li, Fei Long, and E. Honda from Street Fighter ▼ Ashley from Resident Evil 4 and Mita from MiSide ▼ A couple members of Shadow Company from Call of Duty Walking around I felt a real sense of community among many of the cosplayers there. It was so charming to see Hiroshima Freddy and Bayonetta chatting together, I just had to capture this tender moment. ▼ Freddy Krueger and Bayonetta Freddy was far from the only non-comic cinematic character hanging around either. I kept seeing this guy out of the corner of my eye. I assume he was a cosplayer and let me take a picture, but still… ▼ Ghostface from Scream ▼ T-800 and Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 ▼ Judy Hopps from Zootopia And you can't have movies without the Eiga Dorobo from Japanese anti-piracy ads. He's a perennial character in cosplay events and still extremely popular among the attendees. ▼ A Death Eater from Harry Potter ▼ A Predator ▼ Leeloo with her Multi Pass from The Fifth Element and Vault Boy from Fallout I'm not 100-percent sure, but I think these might be actual performers from the Universal Studios Japan show Universal Monsters Live Rock n' Roll that I stumbled on by accident. And speaking of Universal Studios, here is Hami-Kuma Soul, the disfigured teddy bear from their Halloween Horror Night event. ▼ A Robot from Castle in the Sky : It even shines the light on its head at little kids when they walk up to it too, which was just adorable. ▼ Sophie Hatter from Howl's Moving Castle was also there representing Ghibli works. Moving more into anime and manga in general, we have a yoked Master Roshi who's literally yoked by a Myaku-Myaku ring, as well as many other characters. ▼ King, Fubuki, Tatsumaki, Saitama, and Speed-o-Sound Sonic from One Punch Man ▼ Nico Robin from One Piece ▼ Loid and Yor from Spy x Family ▼ Although these anime mecha legends look like statues, they're actual costumes that people went inside for regular shows. Cartoons from the West were also well represented at this year's event, along with some major throwbacks that old-timers like me appreciate. ▼ Rosie from Hazbin Hotel ▼ Alastor from Hazbin Hotel ▼ Charlie Brown from Peanuts ▼ Optimus Prime from Transformers And quite frankly, I felt this incredible Dick Dastardly cosplay was criminally underappreciated at this Comic Con. Shame on you, everyone. I also saw a satirized depiction of Xianxingzhe, the first bipedal robot made in China, called Senkosha in Japanese with an emphasis on what appears to be a crotch rocket. And even the literary world was honored by a couple of Angels from the Heavenly Memorial Agency book series. While I find cosplay to be a celebration of resourcefulness and creativity, there are some people who were just born resembling certain characters from pop culture. ▼ Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil 4 ▼ Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park ▼ Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad Whether you were born with famous looks or made your own luck with outstanding costumes, we here at SoraNews24 salute you and look forward to seeing you at the next Osaka Comic Con. Photos ©SoraNews24 ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
