Stellar Blade Wears Its Star Wars Jedi Influence on Its Sleeve

Even just a few minutes into Shift Up’s Stellar Blade, it’s easy to spot its many influences. It certainly isn’t ashamed to openly admit what other games inspired it. From the parry-focused combat of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice to the delayed sprint mechanics of Final Fantasy 16, Stellar Blade has been influenced by a wide variety of popular games, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The influences of another franchise Stellar Blade appears to wear on its sleeve come from EA and Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi games, which have been deemed some of the best Star Wars games ever made.

Stellar Blade‘s Star Wars Jedi influence runs deep, but it’s also quick to expose itself on numerous occasions. Everything from some of its traversal mechanics to EVE’s skills are clear reflections of its Star Wars Jedi inspiration. However, as Star Wars Jedi is such an acclaimed series, Stellar Blade rightly should imitate it in ways that make sense. After all, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

How Stellar Blade Incorporates Elements of Star Wars Jedi Into Its Gameplay

Stellar Blade Borrows Star Wars Jedi’s Open-World Mechanics

One of the most noticeable ways in which Stellar Blade imitates Star Wars Jedi is in its open world. First and foremost, Stellar Blade relies pretty heavily on Metroidvania mechanics, just as Star Wars Jedi does. As players progress through Stellar Blade‘s story, they’ll not only unlock new traversal skills but also new quests that will allow them to access areas they may have not had access to before. It’s common to backtrack in Star Wars Jedi in search of valuable items, and Stellar Blade has done its best to ensure players will do plenty of backtracking in it as well.

Another element of Star Wars Jedi‘s open world that can be found in Stellar Blade is its Meditation Points, which Stellar Blade calls “Camps.” In Star Wars Jedi, players can rest at Meditation Points to save their game, recover Cal’s health and Force, unlock new skills, and change weapon stances. Unfortunately, this all comes at the cost of respawning any enemies players defeat before resting.

Stellar Blade‘s open-world areas also include plenty of collectibles to find — among them, Robots, which drop plenty of materials when defeated. Like Star Wars Jedi‘s Scavenger Droids, Stellar Blade‘s Robots will attempt to run away when they’re spotted. However, thankfully, they are much easier to catch than Scavenger Droids.

Some of Star Wars Jedi’s Combat and Traversal Skills Can Be Found in Stellar Blade

Star Wars Jedi‘s open-world mechanics aren’t the only thing Stellar Blade imitates, as some of Star Wars Jedi‘s combat and traversal skills can be found in Stellar Blade as well. When it comes to which Star Wars Jedi combat skills Stellar Blade incorporates, it sticks to those Cal is capable of doing in his single-bladed stance, as EVE only has one blade. One of EVE’s Beta skills, Triplet, is almost a direct copy-and-paste version of Cal’s Lunging Strike from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Just as Cal’s Lunging Strike causes Cal to lunge forward with a series of pointed lightsaber attacks, EVE’s Triplet ability is almost identical.

Some of Star Wars Jedi‘s traversal skills have made their way over to Stellar Blade — most notably, Cal’s wall-running ability. Though players won’t pick up the ability to wall-run in Stellar Blade until they’ve progressed through the game a bit, EVE’s wall-running animation is nearly indistinguishable from Cal’s in Star Wars Jedi.

It makes sense that Stellar Blade would imitate Star Wars Jedi on so many levels, given the success of Respawn’s popular franchise. Though Star Wars Jedi has undoubtedly also been inspired by other games, Stellar Blade‘s Star Wars Jedi influences are clear.

Stellar Blade

Stellar Blade is an action-RPG developed by Shift Up and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game follows protagonist Eve as she attempts to save a devastated Earth from invaders called Naytiba.

Released

April 26, 2024

Developer(s)

Shift Up

Publisher(s)

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Genre(s)

Action RPG

Metascore

82

PS Plus Availability

N/A