‘Stellar Blade’ Rockets To A Million PC Sales In Three Days

If you wanted evidence that a game with wide appeal being locked into a single console in a single generation is perhaps not ideal, look no further than the launch of the PC version of Stellar Blade.

Developer SHIFTUP has just announced that Stellar Blade has sold a million copies on PC in just three days of launch, which has brought the total up to 3 million sales since its release in April 2024, a 50% jump almost instantly.

The game has seen a huge boost overseas, particularly in China where reportedly 58% of copies have been sold. The game is also cheaper there compared to the $60 dollar version in the US. Previously, PlayStation’s Shuhei Yoshida has said China in particular is a driving force behind these PlayStation PC ports. Here’s Yoshida speaking to Sacred Symbols earlier this year:

“China is a huge PC game market,” said Yoshida. “And China is a growing but very small console market. In order to reach the audience in countries like China then it’s crucial to release on PC. So, I believe PC versions really reach a new audience.”

The global sales surge has been evidenced by a sky-high concurrent playercount that topped 190,000 this weekend. The new version is reviewing very positively, a 92% ratio on Steam and an 86 metacritic score.

Even before this PC launch, Stellar Blade was a big success for SHIFTUP, this being the developer’s first AAA game, where that, combined with being a new IP, made the achievement all the more impressive. SHIFTUP has confirmed that in addition to further updates to the base game (of which there have been many) that a sequel is planned for 2027, most likely, though details are scarce about what that might look like.

It remains to be seen if that sequel will once again be a PlayStation exclusive, and there are no announced plans to eventually get the game over to Xbox, which is no great surprise. The PC audience is likely expansion enough for Sony, and this has almost tripled the previous record for a PC port of one of its formerly exclusive games (Ghost of Tsushima). Sony’s current plan is to release most of its big AAA single player games on PC eventually, but that day can be years. Multiplayer games, however, are launching day and date on PC, which has been successful with Helldivers 2, albeit that remains its only major success in its recent live service push.

Stellar Blade, in addition to proving that PC is a huge market for certain games, has also helped push the narrative that people want original, single player games instead of endless rehashes and live services. Even so, we don’t see success at this level that often.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.