Summary
- Stellar Blade offers expansive open-world exploration with countless materials, side quests, and rewards for players to discover.
- While similar to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's open-world structure, Stellar Blade encourages more exploration and discovery off the beaten path.
- Stellar Blade's approach to open-world execution may have a leg up on Rebirth, as it emphasizes player-driven discovery and exploration.
There is plenty to see, do, and collect in Shift Up's Stellar Blade. From the moment the world opens itself up for exploration, players can venture off the beaten path to find countless materials for crafting new Nano Suits for EVE, helpful consumables and ammo for the Drone, and side quests that can be highly rewarding. The world of Stellar Blade is large enough to merit considerable exploration, especially as the game's Metroidvania mechanics encourage players to return to areas they've already been to. Similar to Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, as players progress through the game, they enter several open-world zones, where they can potentially spend hours completing and collecting everything available before moving on to the next area.
While Stellar Blade's split-up open-world structure is indeed similar to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's, the two models differ in some rather noticeable ways. That being said, both games execute their open worlds very well, as they provide a satisfying amount of high-quality content for players to enjoy, especially if they're willing to scour the edges of every map and take advantage of every possible opportunity offered to them.
Stellar Blade's New Game Plus Explained
Stellar Blade's New Game Plus does more than simply carry over progress from a previous playthrough with plenty of new suits, skills, and more added.
Stellar Blade and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Take on Different Approaches to Their Open-World Areas
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Open-World Model Is Familiar But Fresh
Fans of the original Final Fantasy 7 probably once thought they'd never get a chance to experience a beautifully rendered semi-open-world version of the game that they love, so diving into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for the first time and seeing its refreshing take on a familiar open-world model can easily give them rose-colored glasses. However, nostalgia aside, Rebirth's open-world zones are well-crafted enough to appeal to newcomers as well as anyone who has grown tired of the traditional open-world model.
For the most part, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's open-world areas follow a set of rules akin to Ubisoft's open-world model, and while that might run some people off, Rebirth executes it well. Each open-world map in Rebirth is full of icons, though not overwhelmingly so. Like many of Ubisoft's open-world games, Rebirth's open-world maps are covered in fog until players reveal them by exploring or activating a series of towers. However, each open-world area breaks up monotony by essentially forcing players to make further progress in the narrative before they can continue exploring certain parts of each world.
Stellar Blade's Open-World Areas Encourage Exploration More Than Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's
While Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth does its best to ensure the activities in its open-world areas don't feel like chores, their nearly cluttered presence on each map nonetheless discourages exploration by almost always telling players where to go. Stellar Blade's open-world zones are similar in that their maps provide players with the location of Camps, Supply Camps, and side quests, but they still leave plenty of mystery where there arguably should be.
What puts Stellar Blade's open-world areas just a step above Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's is the number of collectibles, materials, and lore entries players can find off the beaten path that are nowhere to be seen on the map. Instead, players will need to be in charge of their own discovery by searching every corner of each area for valuable items using their keen senses and EVE's scanner.
It also helps that Stellar Blade's open-world zones are smaller than Rebirth's, although there are mounts in Rebirth and none in Stellar Blade.
Stellar Blade and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth have their own approaches to the open-world model, and they both have their merits. However, Stellar Blade's might just have a leg up on Rebirth when it comes to open-world execution. In many ways, Stellar Blade's open-world approach encourages exploration and increases the value of discovery more than Rebirth's does.
Stellar Blade
- Released
- April 26, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
RECLAIM EARTH FOR HUMANKIND The future of humanity hangs in the balance in Stellar Blade, an all-new story-driven action adventure. Ravaged by strange, powerful creatures, Earth has been abandoned, and what is left of the decimated human race has fled to a Colony in outer space. After travelling from the Colony, 7th Airborne Squad member EVE arrives on the desolate remains of our planet with a clear-cut mission: to save humankind by reclaiming Earth from the Naytiba – the malevolent force that has devastated it. But as EVE tackles the Naytiba one-by-one, piecing together the mysteries of the past in the ruins of human civilization, she realizes that her mission is far from straightforward. In fact, almost nothing is as it seems…
- Developer(s)
- Shift Up
- Publisher(s)
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Metascore
- 82
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
