After Stellar Blade‘s Steam rollout was mysteriously blocked in international locations like Egypt, Vietnam, Estonia, and Cuba, developer Shift Up said it was “intently discussing the area locked concern” with writer Sony.
Whereas there’s nonetheless no formal rationalization on why gross sales have been blocked in over 100 countries around the world, it is thought the checklist broadly matches that of locations the place PlayStation Community will not be accessible — though neither PlayStation nor Shift Up has explicitly confirmed that. As a substitute, the developer insisted it was “doing our BEST to resolve most of it as quickly as doable.”
“PSN connecting [is] totally elective and NEVER required,” the studio added.
In the identical message, Shift Up sought to assuage fears that including DRM — an extra system to assist defend in opposition to tampering and piracy — would adversely impression the sport’s efficiency. It comes after gamers of Resident Evil Village basically proved that the sport’s anti-piracy expertise was behind a persistent stuttering concern a few years in the past.
“As proven within the check chart beneath, the DRM has been arduous tuned to take care of the identical common body fee, with even increased minimal frames in some instances,” the studio defined, including modding can also be “totally supported with none restrictions.”
🔸️We’re intently discussing the area lock concern with the writer and are doing our BEST to resolve most of it as quickly as doable.
🔸️As proven within the check chart beneath, the DRM has been arduous tuned to take care of the identical common body fee, with even increased minimal frames in… pic.twitter.com/JDimvKiKte— StellarBlade (@StellarBlade) May 16, 2025
On the time of writing (Monday, Might 19), there was no additional replace on the difficulty.
The PC model of Stellar Blade launches through Steam on June 11 together with a raft of PC-specific options, together with AI upscaling through Nvidia DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3, an unlocked framerate, Japanese and Chinese language voiceover, ultrawide show help, increased decision setting textures, and DualSense help for haptic suggestions and set off results.
IGN’s Stellar Blade overview returned a 7/10. We stated: “Stellar Blade is nice in the entire most essential methods for an motion recreation, however boring characters, a lackluster story, and a number of other irritating parts of its RPG mechanics forestall it from hovering together with the most effective of the style.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and marketing consultant. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.