10 Beginner Tips for Stellar Blade

With so many things to experience in Stellar Blade, it is only normal for some players to feel overwhelmed. After all, you have different combat mechanics, many traversal puzzles, and a plethora of enemies to slice as you make your way through Earth. To make things easier for newcomers, we’ve made a list of 10 beginner tips you should keep in mind when playing Stellar Blade. Whether you need help with combat, exploration, or both, a bit of help goes a long way.

10. Focus on Dodging or Parrying, Not Both

If you’re an expert, feel free to ignore this tip, but if you are a beginner to games such as Stellar Blade, heed our warning. While the game offers excellent parrying and dodging mechanics, we recommend sticking to one. Early in the game, you can unlock additional inputs after performing a perfect dodge or a successful parry. Instead of unlocking both upgrades, focus on one. Most players tend to be more comfortable with one of the two mechanics, so find the one that’s right for you and stick to it until you master the other.

9. You Can Enable Auto-Loot

It baffles me that Shift Up decided to add a function of holding down a button to loot everything. You can call it a technique to keep players engaged in the game, but combat is enough to do that. Why add additional steps to loot? If you’re tired of that, head to the main menu and enable auto-loot. No need to keep pressing R2 to pick up every shiny thing you see on the floor.

8. Scanning Is Your Best Friend

This might be a given, but you’ve no idea how many times I’ve been saved by scanning an area. The best beginner tip we can give you for Stellar Blade‘s opening hours is to spam that scan button. Loot and secrets aside, many enemies tend to hide in the corner, and they can stun you with one hit. Scan each time you enter a room, walk around a town, and pretty much everywhere. Who knows? You might find a few things that’ll let you to a secret area or even better, to unlock a new suit.

7. Check Your Naytiba Guide

While it isn’t the best bestiary in a game, the Naytiba guide under the data bank tab has useful information. Once you beat a certain enemy, the guide will register it. If you move to the enemy’s page, you can see a few tips on how to fight them. It won’t say the exact inputs or techniques you must pull off, but it’ll tell you a bit about their behavior and the moves they might perform during an encounter.

6. Don’t Go Crazy With Skill Points

Unless you’re keen on grinding, avoid spending your skill points in every node you see. Sometimes, it is better to save your SP for that one skill you want. For example, I focused on upgrading my whole Triplet skill to have a powerful Beta Skill before moving to another node. I recommend doing this to focus on a specific build or to create a playstyle you’re comfortable with.

5. Practice Makes Perfect

We are aware people don’t like doing training in Stellar Blade, but doing so is one of the best beginner tips we can give you. If you’re unsure about a specific skill, practice it first. You don’t have to spend your SP to unlock something for practice. Head to a camp, fire up that simulator and see if that skill is flashy and useful enough for you. If it is, go ahead and spend your hard-earned SP.

4. Get To the Phone

At first, you’ll only see phones at camps, but as you progress through the story, you’ll discover other new booths. These are useful as they unlock fast travel points and once you get to side quests, you’ll be thankful for unlocking them all. While backtracking isn’t bad because you can grind a few SPs and practice your abilities, fast travel is a must if you want to tackle all missions quickly.

3. There’s No Use of Memorizing Everything

Whenever I play a game, I tend to take screenshots of every bit of information in case it’ll be useful in the future. That’s a useless effort here. Eve has a fantastic memory that lets her remember every password she encounters while playing. Or rather, the game has a “hint” button you can press to see what you have to input in certain terminals. Don’t go writing every piece of information you find; just use the good ol’ technology to make your life easier.

2. Don’t Abuse Camps

There’s nothing like a moment of respite at a camp but remember: this is a souls-like game. Each time you rest in a camp, enemies will spawn, and if you already know a few tough foes are waiting for you, we don’t recommend doing that. Instead, try to purchase as many healing items as possible and push through the next camp location instead of returning to a previous one and risking useless fights.

1. Backtracking Is A Must

Speaking of backtracking, our last tip for Stellar Blade beginners has to do with it. While some love rushing the story to unlock new things, souls-like games usually work with a shortcut loop type of system. You clear monsters, unlock a shortcut that makes it easier to return to certain places, rinse, and repeat. Every time you progress, head back to see if you can open a new door, activate an elevator, etc. It’ll make returning to certain areas much easier.

While Stellar Blade does a fantastic job of explaining most of its mechanics, these beginner tips should help you find your footing. Despite its linearity, the game has many secrets for players to uncover, and if you don’t heed some of our advice, you’ll miss out on some sweet rewards for Eve.