Stellar Blade, the popular and controversial 2024 action-adventure game, recently made the jump from PS5 to PC and has shattered records.
A chart from the game’s developer, Shift Up, shows that Stellar Blade reached 192,000 peak concurrent players on Steam at launch. That makes it more than 2.5 times more popular than runner-up Ghost of Tsushima, which had 77,000 concurrent players at its launch. God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and The Last of Us round out the top five single-player games that have been available first on PS5 and now PC.
Shift Up released a chart showing that Stellar Blade is the best selling PlayStation exclusive single-player PC launch in history!
– Reached 192k peak concurrent players on Steam at launch
– Over 2.5x more than the previous record pic.twitter.com/BEuNUm9QhB— Genki✨ (@Genki_JPN) November 24, 2025
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PC gamers are clearly pleased, though Stellar Blade — or perhaps, more accurately Eve, the protagonist — has been highly criticized.
All About Eve
Stellar Blade is a third-person game where players take on the role of Eve, a soldier and last survivor of her squad.
Eve in Stellar Blade (2024), Shift Up
Even before the game was released, Eve’s design became a point of contention. At a State of Play event, Shift Up released a gameplay trailer that showed off the character’s highly sexualized design. While sexy female protagonists are nothing new in video games (Lara Croft, anyone?), some games journalists found Eve to be regressive.
Game director Hyung-Tae Kim added to the controversy in an interview with GamesRadar.
Speaking through a translator, he said, “When it comes to the design, we put special attention on the back of the character because the player is always facing the back of the character when they’re playing.” He added, “That’s what they see the most of, so we thought this was pretty important.”
Those remarks came across creepier than intended. But when Stellar Blade was given a content rating by the ESRB, it was given a more clinical analysis. It was rated M for Mature, noting, “Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, and Violence.” The ESRB went on to add, “The game depicts some female characters in revealing costumes (e.g., deep cleavage; skintight, flesh-toned body suits).”
Eve in Stellar Blade (2024), Shift Up
A day one patch altered some of the costumes, violence, and a piece of graffiti seen in the game in an attempt to make it less offensive. Shift Up claimed that this was how Stellar Blade was intended to look at launch, though many suspected that it was pressure from Sony that forced the changes. Many felt that this was a form of censorship, resulting in a social media campaign led by Mark Kern (AKA Grummz) to revert Stellar Blade to its original look.
Still, all this was only the concern of PS5 gamers. Now that the dust has settled, PC gamers can finally see what all the fuss was about.
Conclusion
While much of the online discourse has centered around humorous and crass remarks, most people just seem happy to play the game for the game.
Stellar Blade (PC) reviews are coming in now: https://t.co/ARN5le25x1
“The game remains fun and engaging a year later, with the experience only getting better.” – But Why Tho? pic.twitter.com/zx6S3NfGKt— metacritic (@metacritic) June 11, 2025
The PS5 version has an 81 (Generally Favorable) on Metacritic, and the PC port has an 84 (Generally Favorable). A sequel is in development for PS5 and PC, with the possibility of a port to the Switch 2 at some point. With the fresh momentum from the PC release, it’s likely that a Stellar Blade 2 will be even more successful, with or without any controversy.
Have you played Stellar Blade on PS5 or PC? What did you think? Let us know in the comments!
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