From its stunning graphics to an intriguing story, Shift Up’s flashy hack n’ slash Stellar Blade has been the talk of the town over the past few weeks. Boasting truly remarkable visuals and plenty of cutscenes, you’d expect the PS5 exclusive to be an SSD-hog. However, the Stellar Blade file size is surprisingly small given its lofty ambitions, with leaked box art claiming it’ll need just 35GB at a minimum.
With the Stellar Blade length clocking in at around 25 hours for a standard playthrough, including ample stunning cinematics, we all thought we’d have to start clearing out space for yet another massive PS5 game. However, taking a look at the pre-release box art that has surfaced online, Stellar Blade is estimated to need “more than 35GB” of free storage space.
Aiming to become one of the best PS5 games and best open-world games, something around a 60GB file size would have been expected, given its smaller scale than a colossus like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth – which storms in with a staggering 150GB file size. In fact, this is much smaller than many of the new PS5 games coming out, such as Granblue Fantasy Relink, and likely even Rise of the Ronin and Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Given this is based on pre-release information, it’s possible that this estimated file size for the PS5 exclusive changes before the Stellar Blade release date arrives. In other words, be prepared to have to pick up one of the best PS5 SSDs just in case.
Nevertheless, this is a remarkably small file size given the game’s ambitions. Promising a twisting narrative packed with cinematics, intense and fast-paced combat, a semi-open-world, heaps of costumes, and even a fishing minigame, there’s a lot of content to pack into one download. However, with Shift Up CEO and Stellar Blade director Kim Hyung-tae claiming the PS5 is a dream platform for the upcoming RPG game, it’s possible that the team has eked out everything the system has to offer – including crunching down its file size.
Stellar Blade’s incredible visuals sure look unbelievable, and that’s as worrying as it is exciting. Unfortunately, there’s still some waiting to go for the action-packed exclusive, so why not find out how the PS5’s challenging launch left Sony head Jim Ryan with his head in his hands?