Stellar Blade Was Inspired by a Taxi Driver Strike, Along With Alita: Battle Angel and ’80s, ’90s Sci-Fi [IGN]

PlayStation 5’s upcoming sci-fi action-adventure game Stellar Blade is just weeks away from release. In tandem with letting players give Stellar Blade’s demo a whirl, developer Shift Up revealed what inspired them to create its first console title, including a real-world strike.

Stellar Blade follows a woman named Eve as she combats mysterious invaders known as NA:tives to reclaim a post-apocalyptic Earth. In a recent PlayStation Blog interview, director Kim Hyung Tae revealed Stellar Blade’s fantastical story and theme of humanity was inspired by a time he witnessed a taxi driver strike.

“The strike erupted when technologies for self-driving cars began advancing, almost hinting at the implementation of autonomous cars in the near future. This instilled fear among taxi drivers that these technologies would eventually take over and replace their jobs,” Hyung Tae said. “As I watched them on strike, I asked myself what I would do if this were to happen to me, if one day humans were entirely replaced by something non-human. This is where the theme for Stellar Blade originates.”

In the past, Hyung Tae has made it very public that Stellar Blade was inspired by Square Enix’s 2017 hit, Nier: Automata. Like Stellar Blade, Nier: Automata is a sci-fi action game that follows a young (android) woman named 2B tasked with reclaiming the world from robots for the last vestige of humanity. While the two games share similar sci-fi premises, one of the most challenging aspects of bringing Stellar Blade to life for Shift Up was making it feel like a fresh iteration of the genre.

“Post-apocalypse has been one of the longest-running genres in the game industry, among many others. So, for us to avoid monotony and make Stellar Blade a unique post-apocalyptic story was a major challenge,” Hyung Tae said.

To avoid making Stellar Blade feel derivative by incorporating “eccentric or bizarre elements,” Shift Up instead opted to “reimagine and render” elements from classic ’80s and ’90 sci-fi to make the game feel unique.

“People have their own vision of what a post-apocalyptic world is like based on what they’ve envisioned in their heads or seen in movies and such. I’m sure many players will appreciate and admire the details and attention that went into making the post-apocalyptic world in Stellar Blade vivid and realistic,” Hyung Tae said, adding that a younger generation of gamers may find their post-apocalyptic world to be “quite novel.”

On the topic of movies, towards the latter half of the interview, Hyung Tae revealed Stellar Blade was also inspired by Yukito Kishiro’s iconic 1991 sci-fi manga, Gunm — otherwise known in the West as Battle Angel Alita. Hyung Tae says he specifically took inspiration from director Robert Rodriguez’s 2019 film adaptation, Alita: Battle Angel, when crafting Stellar Blade’s theme and design.

In our preview, we likened Stellar Blade’s combat to Sekiro meets Nier: Automata, saying, “While the depth of its exploration remains to be seen, Stellar Blade’s action alone was more than enough to get me excited for its April 26 release on PlayStation 5.”
Stellar Blade is slated to release on April 26, 2024.