Stellar Blade PC Debut Leaves The Last Of Us In The Dust

Stellar Blade made waves last year as one of the most popular releases on PlayStation, selling over a million copies within its first few months. The sci-fi action title was a worthy Game of the Year contender in many players’ eyes, despite being snubbed alongside Warhammer: Space Marine 2 by many of the major award shows.

The popularity of Stellar Blade led many to believe that a PC port was inevitable, and now, one year later, Korean developer Shift Up has finally released the PC version on Steam with record-breaking success.

When You Can Play Stellar Blade On PC: Global Launch Times And Release Info

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According to SteamDB, the game has a concurrent player count of well over 120,000 at the time of writing, and it is trending to increase even higher by the evening and weekend.

By comparison, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered peaked at 66,436 and Horizon: Zero Dawn at 56,557. The Last of Us Part 1 reached a peak of 36,496 while its controversial sequel only managed 30,690.

This makes Stellar Blade by far the most successful PlayStation-published single-player title on PC, and indications are that it might even outsell its console figures before it is done.

Sending A Message

“In the AAA game market, PC devices have a higher market share than consoles, so we expect the performance of the PC version to exceed that of the console version,” Shift Up told Eurogamer, “We are particularly observing trends such as the significant expansion of the single-player action game market in the Asian gaming industry.”

The success of Stellar Blade isn’t a huge surprise to those who have been paying attention to the general sentiment among large swathes of gamers, who often feel starved of high-quality storytelling and engaging characters.

Particularly when compared with The Last of Us 2, which many players felt let down by due to the treatment of its former protagonist, a game like Stellar Blade which was received as a breath of fresh air.

So far, reviews are trending at ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ with over 3,000 reviews. Players have noted the outstanding visual quality and soundtrack as particular highlights, with many also praising its performance and optimization.

The future looks bright for Stellar Blade and Shift Up, and for PC gamers in general. Although the console wars are far from over, and the era of exclusivity is likely to continue for some time, let’s hope that more companies will follow Shift Up’s example by delivering high-quality PC ports. So far, the strategy appears to have paid off.