Stellar Blade is a sales success for SHIFT UP and PlayStation, but it’s not the massive milestone that it could have been. While this hack-and-slash RPG is far from a failure, it’s not the major video game debut that Sony were hoping for.
Mat Piscatella, Circana’s executive director, reveals that the PS5 exclusive was the lowest best-selling game in April since Prototype 2 came out 12 years ago. Piscatella does admit that this is still impressive, it’s still the best-selling game of April after all, but it’s not the sales juggernaut Sony was hoping for.
Character action games like Stellar Blade haven’t sold well in a while, so the fact that it was #1 in April is still something of an accomplishment. If anything, this does show that gamers are willing to give new IP a shot if the concept is interesting enough. The fact that this game also has a ton of sex appeal certainly helped.
At least Stellar Blade topped last month’s Top 20 sales list, as Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth couldn’t even dent those charts. Most fans were shocked by this since Rebirth is a big improvement over Remake in terms of gameplay, though it is stuck on the PS5. Remake was a major sales success on PS4 and that system’s users haven’t fully migrated to the PS5 yet.
Developer SHIFT UP is continuing to release free content for the RPG, giving fans new outfits and New Game Plus. SHIFT UP is also thinking of bringing the game over to PC, as more fans are slowly getting into gaming computers over the past few years. If they do bring the game to PC, fans can expect some jaw-dropping mods that won’t be safe for work.
Stellar Blade is readily available on PS5 and it might come to PC in the coming months or years. Only time will tell if this RPG gets a sequel but it will probably do better if its a multi-platform release.