Earlier this month, the Stellar Blade devs said they were a bit "scared" by diehard fans who'd already poured dozens of hours into the demo. After seeing one player who spent 60 hours grinding through the demo's limited content to max out Eve's skill tree before we could even release our Stellar Blade review, I think I understand why.
That player is hardwarecheese, who recently posted a picture of a nearly complete Stellar Blade skill tree to Reddit under the title "almost maxed out!" In the post, hardwarecheese wrote "I am excited to transfer over all my data to the full game and experience it for the first time with alot of the moves unlocked from the jump!"
The responses to that thread are about what you'd expect, running the gamut from impressed by the dedication to wondering why anybody would spend this much time on a seemingly pointless exercise. The Stellar Blade demo is meaty relative to what you'd expect, but it's still a limited chunk of the game's content, which means hardwarecheese had to spend a whole lot of time grinding the same level over and over again.
- Stellar Blade was such a hit that its dev gave all employees a PS5 Pro and a roughly $3,400 bonus, and this horny action RPG isn't even on PC yet
- It's about sending a message: Elden Ring fan waits for Nightreign by no-hitting Shadow of the Erdtree's Messmer on NG+7 difficulty with a new weapon every single day
All told, hardwarecheese has spent "about 60 hours" in the demo. "I do a loop back to the save point at the ladder before the parking garage," they explain, adding that the goal here is to "get super comfortable with all the moves combos and variations!" In another comment, hardwarecheese says that "My personal goal was to learn how to use combos along with perfect parry to always recharge beta so the game flow would be entertaining but effective."
That grinding is set to transfer to the full game when it launches later this week, as saved progress from the demo does carry over. I'm not sure there's any game I'd be willing to spend two-and-a-half full days repeating the same level over and over in, but hey, who am I to tell someone that they're enjoying a game too much?
Death Stranding 2 pre-orders are estimated to go live this month, and will reportedly include a $230 collector's edition that I pray doesn't come with another creepy baby statue
Playing Atomfall for 90 minutes booted me out of my comfort zone more than any other survival action game, and that's a very good thing
