Developer Shift Up said it was “closely discussing the region lock issue” with Sony after it became apparent yesterday, Friday 16th May, that Stellar Blade Steam’s release on 11th June has been blocked in over 120 countries without explanation.
In a brief statement posted to social media, the developer stressed it was doing its “BEST” to resolve “most of” the issue as soon as possible and would come back to players “as soon as [it] has more to share”.
After players also discovered that Denuvo has been incorporated in the PC version of Stellar Blade, much to the annoyance of some, the studio also took the opportunity to provide a chart to demonstrate DRM had been “hard-tuned to maintain the same average frame rate, with even higher minimum frames in some cases”.
“Mods are fully supported without any restrictions. PSN connecting entirely optional and NEVER required. Both the PC and PS5 versions offer the same content. We will make sure that early buyers are never at a disadvantage through future updates,” the studio stressed.
Helldivers 2 was review-bombed last year following a PSN requirement, which led to the game being pulled from sale in 177 countries. The company quickly u-turned its decision following the backlash. It would appear Stellar Blade is experiencing a similar issue, although Shift Up has stated a PSN account is only optional and not required.
We gave Stellar Blade four stars out of five in Eurogamer’s Stellar Blade review, writing: “Stellar Blade has a fair bit of weirdness, but its killer tunes and vibey, flow-state combat – plus a transformative hard mode – are enough to leave you entranced.”