author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
Stellar Blade Action RPG Demo Proves Wildly Popular. Devs Are Terrified by Number of Hours Players Spend With It
It appears that players literally threw themselves at the Stellar Blade demo. It attracted more people than the demo version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Surprisingly, some people spent up to 50 hours with it.
At the end of March, Korean studio Shift Up released a demo of the upcoming game Stellar Blade. PlayStation 5 console owners who are interested can try out the first stage of the production with Eve in the lead role for free. It turns out that a lot of people were interested in this demo version.
Huge interest in Stellar Blade
This is according to data published by the Ampere Analysis group.Up to 690,000 PS5 players played the Stellar Blade demo in one day. This result was compared with that achieved by another exclusive title, namely Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. 380,000 people engaged with the Square Enix company's demo version on a record-breaking day.
Stellar Blade is estimated to attract around twice as many players at its premiere as the latest Final Fantasy, according to Ampere Analysis. This amounts to approximately 2.2 million people. The slasher from Shift Up studio may be played by about 4 million players on its release day at best, although this number could be significantly lower, as reported by Ampere Analysis.
The hype surrounding Stellar Blade - largely focused on its character models - may have resulted in inflated interest in the demo, and the rate of conversion to paying, launch users could fall short of what we have seen for its competitors [read: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth].
"The fear" of developers and the desire to release next games
The developers are "frightened" by the number of hours fans can "lose" in the Stellar Blade demo, which may further indicate how much players enjoyed it. Some people spent over 50 hours in the demo version, and let's note that it can be completed in about an hour.
While it's uncertain whether the full version of Stellar Blade will be as successful as the demo, the devs appear confident in theirs success. Kim Hyung-Tae, the director of the game, argues that the market currently requires single-player games that can be "finished" (i.e. those without a complex endgame that essentially compels players to spend hundreds of hours on a particular title). For this reason, Shift Up studio wants to release more such titles in the future.
If you are excited about Stellar Blade, you might be interested in the material published today (below), which presents ominous bosses known as Naytiba. Interestingly, at the very beginning clay models of these characters were made to make them look as detailed and realistic as possible in the game.
Stellar Blade will be released on April 26 on PS5. At a later time, the game will be also released on PC. As journalist Tom Henderson announced today, the review embargo will end on April 24.
