Stellar Blade is a good game. If you wanted Nier: Automata without all the heady themes, then Shift Up’s latest PS5-exclusive character action game fits the bill perfectly. It doesn’t tell as good a story as PlatinumGames’ 2017 character action game, and its characterization isn’t as deep either, but there is one quest chain so good, so moving, that I’m still thinking about it. Actually, these missable side missions are the best mini-story Stellar Blade has to offer.
To talk about these side quests, though, I’m going to have to venture into spoiler territory a little bit. I won’t reveal everything in the two-part mission, but some story beats will get dragged out into the open. So, this is your warning that spoilers for the “Looking at You” and “Keeping Secrets” missions are coming.
A Shakespearean play in the making
So. Eve, a pretty girl with a sharp sword, has descended onto Earth to help humanity rebuild itself and put an end to a deadly invasion by aliens called Naytibas. To get a feel for the vibes, she arrives in Xion, the last human city. It’s here where you buy things from shops, interact with NPCs, find collectibles and chests, and pick up side quests. One of the earlier side objectives is titled “Looking at You,” and it’s the one that kicks off this tear-jerking love story between two androids: an immobile singer and her bodyguard.
To start Looking at You, you’ll head to The Last Gulp, an underground bar on the southwest side of Xion. It’s an empty bar, with a pool table that has a couple balls on it and some furniture turned over, but a melody makes its way out. The only visible person is a silver-haired female android, her legs stripped to bare stilts, a glowing-green robot hovering over her right shoulder like some IV bag. This is Enya and, as her bodyguard Su explains upon emerging from the shadows, she’s stuck in this bar, humming her songs forever. She’s badly damaged, and Su’s there protecting Enya as the world goes to shit. Su wants to help but has no money to pay for the parts needed to restore Enya to a functional state. And as she is, she can only hum. Otherwise, she’s…lifeless.
Eve offers to help. She’s an “angel,” as the citizens of Xion call her, because of her connection to the Airborne Squad regiment. Since she’s got it like that, Eve talks to her fellow Airborne Squadmate, the plucky engineer Lily, about what’s required to get Enya in working order. After a brief chat, and you running through the Wasteland (one of Stellar Blade’s open zones) collecting the necessary components, Lily performs a quick operation on Enya. When Lily finishes, Enya and Su share a tender little moment as she recounts how “it’s been so long” since she’s felt the warmth of his hands.
Enya, like Su, doesn’t have anything to repay Eve with—besides the music she’s been humming in the bar for years. Eve says that’s just fine. With that, Looking at You is complete. But this is just Act One of this two-pronged love story.
What an android would do for love
Act Two is “Keeping Secrets,” and it starts in The Last Gulp again, but a little bit later in the game. When you return to the bar, you’ll notice that Enya has stopped singing. It’s because of Su. He hasn’t been lurking in the pub’s shadows since they fixed Enya up, and now she’s worried he’s seeing another girl. Enya asks you to investigate Xion, chatting up the denizens to see if anyone’s seen Su. Apparently, he was seen talking to another girl, but it was just Kaya, the young proprietor of the miscellaneous junk shop Sister’s Junk. Kaya says that Su was looking for a way to give Enya legs, so she told him about some parts in the Wasteland that can be fashioned into new limbs. With this information in hand, he rushed off, but Kaya said it had been some days since he was last seen. So, being the angel that she is, Eve books it to the Wasteland once more.
When there, you’re looking for any traces that Su might still be alive. It’s been a while, so he could be anywhere in the Wasteland, in one piece or in multiple. Eventually, you start finding things: a couple of notes he dropped, blood trails and fresh corpses, his gun. This all leads to a series of abandoned and busted shipping containers stacked on top of each other. You find Su, as well as the legs he was searching for so that Enya can walk again. I don’t want to spoil too much after this point, as you ought to experience the rest of this quest’s storytelling for yourself, but suffice it to say, that Enya and Su are a perfect ship. Shakespeare would be proud, maybe even jealous, of the love these two share.
He might seem like a creep at first, lurking in the shadows as Enya remains still, humming melodies under the creaking of her exposed machinery. But he cares so deeply about her. Su’s admiration of Enya is so evident that he’d do anything for her. He’d risk his life if doing so came with the world to give to her in exchange. Seriously, this little love story is a Shakespearean tragedy in the making, and it’s completely missable if you don’t meet Enya in The Last Gulp.
Now that I’ve spoiled the best mini-story in Stellar Blade involving the game’s most romantic couple ever, you should totally just go play the game and experience the events in Eve’s heel-less heels for yourself. It’s out now for PS5.
