The lack of a release date—or even a release window—in the Stellar Blade: Blood Rain trailer was exactly what it looked like: It's far from finished and won't be out for a while.
Developer Shift Up made this clear in a news release about the action game sequel. It said the Stellar Blade: Blood Rain is "still in early development," and isn't at a point where it can show much more than what we saw in the trailer. That said, it added that the team "has made incredible progress and is looking forward to sharing more details when ready."
That's good to hear because Stellar Blade fans have a lot of questions. Not only does the game look like it's in a completely different setting despite Shift Up claiming it shares the same universe as the first game, it's odd how the the main character, Evie, has such a similar name to Eve in the original. Stellar Blade is heavily inspired by the Nier games, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's some significance to what we were shown.
For a game that is nowhere near finished, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain looks like it has a clear path forward. The brief bits of combat we saw had Evie pummeling monsters apart, as opposed to the first game's focus on sword fighting. Although she might eventually pick up a blade, Evie's approach to fighting appears to lean into brawling over slicing and dicing.
Shift Up gave zero hints on when we can expect to hear more about the game. For now, we will just have to be patient until we can start to see just how it intends to continue the story.
Stellar Blade 2 is actually Stellar Blade: Blood Rain – it's in "the same universe" but looks nothing like the first game and has a new protagonist
