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Geek Culture
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
‘Stellar Blade' On PC Is The Definitive Way To Experience Eve's Journey
Fan service is a beautiful thing. The mere notion of giving an audience exactly what they want is simple, yet wholly effective in drawing attention to a game, regardless of its quality. And while most titles of this nature offer nothing more than a visual treat, with no substantial accompanying gameplay systems to back it up, Shift Up's 2024 hack-and-slash jaunt Stellar Blade goes above and beyond. Alongside glorious fan service in the form of gorgeous character designs and eye-popping cosmetics to collect, its slick visuals are held together by a solid gameplay and combat foundation, becoming a testament to what a game can achieve when a studio understands its target audience. Since its release in April 2024, the game has seen constant post-launch support, not only fixing many of the gameplay issues listed in our review, but also a multitude of bonus free and paid content like a New Game+ mode, additional costumes, seasonal events, and crossovers with other IPs like PlatinumGames' 2017 action hit Nier Automata . Now that Stellar Blade is available on PC, those who were unable to play it on the first day of release due to PlayStation 5 launch exclusivity can finally hop on the hype train, joining a whole new player base in experiencing Eve's adventure the definitive way, complete with a suite of PC-specific features and improvements. Even on the base PS5, the performance of Stellar Blade was, well… stellar upon launch. The game had no problems hitting the coveted 60 frames per second (fps) on Performance Mode, even offering three different graphics modes, a feature not often seen on the platform: Performance Mode, which ran at 1440p upscaled to 4K at a practically locked 60fps; Balanced Mode, which ran at a dynamic 1080p to 1440p with temporal reconstruction up to 4K for cleaner image fidelity and also mostly stuck to 60fps; and a Quality Mode which targeted a native 4K image at a locked 30fps. The PC port removes these frame rate limitations, unlocking the game's maximum potential with possible frame rates well above 60fps, which is extremely important considering the timing-based nature of its combat. With the added fluidity, perfect parries and dodges are now much easier to pull off than before, making combat more satisfying as a result. To further improve performance, Stellar Blade also includes support for modern AI-assisted upscaling tools, such as NVIDIA DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3, for ramping up performance with the least impact on visual quality. Frame generation technologies are also supported, such as NVIDIA's latest multi-frame generation, which boosts frame rates even further on GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards. On a gaming laptop powered by an RTX 5070 Ti mobile GPU, Stellar Blade achieved an average frame rate of between 180 and 200fps on maximum graphical settings, including DLSS 4 on Quality and with Multi-Frame generation turned on – an impressive feat for a laptop graphics card. Even without all the performance bells and whistles, the game's optimisation remains impressive. When tested on a lower-end Intel Arc A750 GPU (comparable to an RTX 4060) with an Intel Core i5-12400F processor, the game managed to maintain a mostly locked 60fps at a 3440×1440-pixel widescreen resolution with all settings at High, only dropping to the mid-50s during intensive cutscenes. Apart from performance, Stellar Blade 's PC port also includes various features exclusive to the platform, such as the 21:9 and 32:9 ultrawide and super ultrawide aspect ratios, alongside additional 4K background textures. Controller users can expect full support for the PlayStation DualSense controller's haptic feedback and adaptive trigger features, with the ability to fully customise key layouts for gamepads, keyboards and mice for added flexibility. Additionally, a host of new content has been added across PC and PS5, including a new boss fight with Mann, the leader of the Sentinels, 25 additional Nano Suits, as well as Simplified Chinese and Japanese voiceovers with matching facial animations. A new paid crossover DLC with Goddess of Victory: Nikke has also been released for both platforms, bringing new game-inspired costumes and bonus missions featuring Nikke 's cover-shooting mechanics. With the PC release of Stellar Blade , there's no better time to hop in and witness Eve's journey for both newcomers and returning players. For more, check out our gameplay video above showcasing 45 minutes of the game running on an RTX 4090 gaming rig at max settings at an ultra-wide 3440×1440 resolution. Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying. Shift Up Stellar Blade Stellar Blade pc
The Verge
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Ninja Gaiden 4's gory combat hides a goofy center
Ninja Gaiden 4 was one of several games that Xbox showed off in its games showcase over the weekend. And during its Summer Game Fest-adjacent in-person preview event, I got the chance to play it for myself. I've never played Ninja Gaiden before and was skeptical that the game's generic dark aesthetic, which feels straight out of 2012, could capture my interest. But after a short hands-on demo and an interview with the game's developers, I'm less wary and powerfully intrigued. Despite the '4' in the title, Ninja Gaiden 4 represents a soft reset for the franchise. You play as Yakumo, a ninja of the Raven Clan, who must save Tokyo from corruption. The game feels like a hack-and-slash beat 'em up with extreme emphasis on the hacking and slashing. Yakumo uses a number of weapons and abilities at his disposal, including swords, throwing knives, and an ability that briefly transforms him into a demonic raven for an extra burst of power. My time with the demo was short, consisting of Yakumo ninja-flipping through ruined city streets, fighting packs of cybernetic demons. In combat, you can string together attacks, producing visually impressive combos. One of the things that I most appreciated about the combat system was that it included one of my favorite moves in any action game — an air recovery ability. If you're hit into the air, you can quickly tap a button to right yourself and get back into the fight rather than get knocked away. Whoever at Team Ninja / PlatinumGames is a Kingdom Hearts fan, I see you. Also, along the way, I encountered a number of Yakumo's allies (including one voiced by Brandon ' Garrus Vakarian ' Keener, whose voice I'd know anywhere) who introduced me to the world, giving me power-ups and combat advice. This game is bloody, cartoonishly so. Once I've whittled down my enemies' health, I can dismember them in a number of increasingly brutal ways. It was so over the top that it veered into absurd territory, and I found myself laughing out loud in an otherwise quiet demo room. I wondered if the tension between the hardcore seriousness of Yakumo and his friends versus the goofy violence was intentional, but according to the developers, the game is working as intended. ' Ninja Gaiden has always been known as a very violent game, but we didn't want to just make it grotesque,' says Yuji Nakao, game producer and director at PlatinumGames, speaking through a translator. 'Because if we did that, you'd get tired of it.' Team Ninja partnered with PlatinumGames to develop the title, and the inclusion of the studio that made Bayonetta informs a bit of that tonal dissonance. Bayonetta is campy and fun, and I can see elements of that camp in Ninja Gaiden 4. 'When we were working with PlatinumGames,' says Masakazu Hirayama, the producer and director at Team Ninja. 'We wanted to bring their unique style approach to the action genre and inject that into the series.' Unless you count ports, remasters, or spinoffs, it's been more than 12 years since the last original title in the Ninja Gaiden series. In that time, a new crop of gamers, who are probably more familiar with Bayonetta, have come up. Meanwhile, there's still an older generation running around with memories of Ryu Hayabusa and Ninja Gaiden Black. The result of the partnership between PlatinumGames and Team Ninja is a game that has elements that'll appeal to different generations of players. ' Ninja Gaiden is about having a very diverse tool set that allows you to feel like that ultimate super ninja,' says Hirayama. 'And I think you'll see that the new protagonist and his new tool set opens up a lot of new possibilities.' The new game may not seem like the most exciting of titles if you're not a long-time fan of the series. But my skepticism of the game was slashed away in the face of an over-the-top gorefest that seems to take itself seriously but is hiding a soft, goofy center that wound up being really fun to play. Ninja Gaiden 4 comes out on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC on October 21st.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ninja Gaiden 4 looks sick, is out in October, and has the exact storytelling I demand from a ninja game: 'You're a wanted criminal now'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Ninja Gaiden 4 got a new trailer and a release date at today's Xbox Games Showcase, and this thing looks like a fever dream I had back in 2013: which I mean as a compliment. I mean, what more is there to life than murdering enemy ninjas and demons in incredibly graceful and over-the-top fashion? The major reason for excitement around Ninja Gaiden 4, after the unutterably disappointing Ninja Gaiden 3, is that Team Ninja has been on fine form ever since with the likes of Nioh, and on this occasion had the wisdom to rope-in Platinum Games, best-known for Bayonetta and a studio that boasts some of the best hack-and-slash talent the industry's ever known. And doesn't Ninja Gaiden 4 show it. You wanna know what I mean by hack-and-slash talent? This trailer opens with a character called Seori saying "watch your back Yakumo, you're a wanted criminal now." "I'll kill the dark dragon myself," says new protagonist Yakumo. "It's my mission as a raven ninja." The latter phrase is uttered as some goon's body slowly slides apart after being bisected by a ninja sword and all I have to say is: yes. Then some dork called Misaki says "breaking the dark dragon free has consequences" before a shot of some thunder-y lightning-flecked skies, and we're into the action shots of enemies being chopped into pieces. So many pieces. We get a glimpse of Yakumo's various weapons which include one that morphs into a giant drill, which he then drills enemy bodies apart with, and an absolutely sick-looking hammer that I am going to main. We've had about five seconds' worth of dialogue followed by about 400 enemies being eviscerated in 15 seconds and, you know what: take my ninjacoin. But wait there's more: Seori pops up again and says "Ryu, there's something I need your help with" and say no more fam: we're instantly into our boy Hayabusa filleting monsters, executing a fool with a perfect Flying Swallow, executing perfect dodges, and cracking out the ninpo magic. I especially liked how the camera jerks down into a fixed position for the ninpo, which maybe doesn't look as slick as some modern titles but is how the Ninja Gaiden games have always done it. At a certain point in the trailer some of you might find yourselves thinking "why does this giant mutated shark have an almost equally large humanoid skeleton inside it?" And it's a fair question but, if you need it answered, this isn't the game for you. I on the other hand am going to brutally kill that skeleton shark for daring to exist in my videogame. Ninja Gaiden 4 is out October 21, 2025, and you best believe I've got a hot date that night with a dark dragon.
