With Stellar Blade, Shift Up was heading into uncharted territory, as the developer hadn’t worked on something this mainstream for gaming consoles before. Therefore, finding the right balance between the narrative elements and the gameplay mechanics was going to be a bit of a challenge.
Where some might’ve found the story to be lacking, especially when compared to many other aspects that the game gets right, there’s one twist that may have seemed predicable on a surface level, but it turns out that its unsurprising nature was intentional.
The Adam Twist in Stellar Blade May Not Have Been a Surprise, but It Wasn’t Meant to Be One Anyway
Spoilers for Stellar Blade will be briefly discussed from this point onward, so for those players who haven’t finished playing the game, it’d be wise to proceed with caution.
Throughout the narrative, Adam plays quite a crucial role in Eve’s journey and her mission to bring down the Naytiba, as he is a major part of the squadron that also includes Lily. However, it can be seen from a mile away that Shift Up is building up towards something much bigger involving the character, as he is the one who presents Eve with a couple of choices at the end to decide the ultimate fate of humanity.
The plot twist revolving around Adam does not really come off as a surprise, but director Hyung-Tae Kim has now clarified that it was never meant to be one. “The lore of Adam and his involvement with Eve was conceived relatively early in the game’s production,” stated the developers in a recent interview, as the male counterpart of the Stellar Blade protagonist was always going to be an integral part of the main narrative.
The team continued that it wanted “this aspect of the plot to be somewhat predictable,” so the core intention was to ensure that players figure it out early on rather than blowing their minds by revealing the secret in the final act.
The Concept of Plot Twists Seems a Little Played Out in 2024
Regardless of whether a piece of media belongs to the realm of gaming, movies, or television, the one factor that they frequently have in common is that many of them try to defy their audience’s expectations when it comes to their respective narratives.
This has caused an oversaturation of plot twists to a point where their existence is not really as surprising as it once used to be, and Shift Up has been observing this change in dynamics. “Since plot twists are not particularly novel in 2024,” continued the Stellar Blade developer, “we aimed for players to focus more on the choices they make throughout the game.”
Through this approach, the plot points were “naturally” revealed as players progressed through the game, but Stellar Blade’s narrative capabilities may have suffered because of it.
Did you see the Adam twist coming, or were you actually surprised by the revelation at the end of Stellar Blade? Let us know in the comments!
