Stellar Blade^note formerly titled Project Eve (스텔라 블레이드, Seutella Beulleideu) is an Action RPG that combines stylish action with deliberate and difficult combat, developed by Korean studio SHIFT UP Corp. (developer of Destiny Child and Goddess of Victory: NIKKE) and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game is directed by SHIFT UP CEO Hyung-tae Kim (previously known for his character artwork for the Magna Carta games), and features monster designs by Hee-Cheol Jang (Okja, The Host), as well as music composed in part by Monaca, a music studio founded by Keiichi Okabe.

The game follows EVE, a member of the 7th Airborne Infantry, whose purpose is to reclaim the desolate planet Earth for humankind. Their enemy is the Naytiba, who forced humans to evacuate their home and establish an off-world Colony to survive. EVE's mission is to locate and destroy the Alpha Naytiba and the Elder Naytiba. Along the way, she joins forces with Adam, a scavenger living on Earth, and Lily Artemis II, an engineer in the 5th Airborne.

It was released on April 26th, 2024 for the PlayStation 5. A demo was released on March 29th, 2024. In addition, a motion comic that serves as a prequel to the game was also released on the day it launched. A PC port was released on June 11, 2025. A port to the Nintendo Switch 2 is slated for a 2026 release.

A paid Downloadable Content expansion featuring Crossover content with NieR: Automata was released on November 19th, 2024, while a second Crossover with Goddess of Victory: NIKKE was released on June 11, 2025 simultaneously with the PC port.

On June 5, 2026 during Summer Games Fest, a sequel titled Stellar Blade: Blood Rain starring a new protagonist named Evie was revealed to be in development. Reveal Trailer

Tropes featured:

• Action Girl: EVE. All other Airborne Squadron members of the Colony also count, including Tachy (EVE’s superior) who appears during the tutorial battles.
• Adam and Eve Plot: In a situation where the human species has been decimated by war to near extinction, two of the few survivors are named Adam and EVE. At the Final Boss, if EVE chooses to take Adam’s hand, they fuse together to create the first specimen of a new humanity.
• After the End: By the time of EVE's arrival, monsters known as the Naytiba have ravaged Earth, leaving only one city standing. It became that way because having nearly lost the first original war, Mother Sphere de-orbited an entire planet-circling habitation ring to combine Colony Drop with global carpet bombing, resulting in the decrepit conditions of the present.
• Aggressive Play Incentive:
  • The game encourages players to be aggressive while attacking with Eve, giving her combos multiple points where she can cancel the animation to either dodge or parry an enemy's attack. In addition, an unlockable skill also allows her to give the last input of any combo string super armor, allowing it to tank hits without interrupting the attack.
  • Enemy Naytiba also have shields and poise, disrupting these leads to them taking more damage, but doing so requires players to be aggressive to whittle them down.
  • Several unlockable skills in the game let the player stun the opponent while also increasing their attack speed or attack power, encouraging them to perform longer, more damaging combos.
  • While EVE does get ranged weapons, ammo is limited and even dispatching just one enemy can take a lot of ammo.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Mother Sphere was hailed as the savior of humanity by helping them develop technologies that would overcome the dangers of climate change. However, after the development of the Andro-Eidos androids, Mother Sphere decided to make the Andro-Eidos her own replacement "humanity" and exterminate the "obsolete" organic humans, sparking the Final War that drove the remnants of humanity into transforming themselves into Naytiba just to stand a chance at fighting back.
• Amazon Brigade: EVE and the rest of the 7th Airborne Squadron are all female. In fact, there seems to be no men whatsoever in Mother Sphere’s personal army.
• And the Adventure Continues: The Stinger for the "Making New Memories" ending concludes on the text "Their journey continues on."
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Stellar Blade currently has around 100 different unlockable outfits for Eve, half of which are in New Game+ and in DLC's, including collaboration outfits with other IPs.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • While vitcoins are a spendable currency in shops, there is always a vitcoin at every new camp you find, ensuring you are never caught unable to activate a camp.
  • Upon entering Altess/Abyss Levoire, EVE's sword will be disabled due to electromagnetic interference except for the drone's ranged mode. While ammo remains limited, the game makes things easy by having enemies inside guaranteeing dropped ammo upon defeat, and opening a box beside the elevator you take on the way to Altess Levoire is an Eagle-Eye Type Exospine designed to improve on ranged attacks. The facilities are dotted with plenty of ammo refill stations to ensure you can enter a fight fully loaded, and some arenas even have many ammo pickups littered about so it's hard to run out in the middle of a long fight.
  • When you reach the final boss fights against Raven and either Adam or the Providence, the nearby camps will also be near respawning crates you can break for supplies and gold, meaning you can still buy needed supplies from the camp store if you run low through repeated attempts. The WB Pump also ceases to be a limited quantity item at this time as well.
  • Eve will draw her sword as soon as she gets an enemy's attention, even if said enemy is off-screen, keeping the player aware of danger even if the enemy in question lacks an alert sound.
  • Many bosses have a camp directly after their arena, and visible from there with a scan, reducing the tedium in doubling back to save and restock after victory.
  • Being near a human corpse with a Body or Beta core pickup will cause a PS5 controller to vibrate. In addition, the bodies are always in the same unique pose, making them easy to spot through walls with the scanner.
  • Upon fulfilling the objectives for each sidequest, you are given the option to immediately fast travel directly to the quest giver to turn it in, saving you the inconvenience of having to search the map and seek out the nearest phone booth.
  • If you missed any items in Spire 4 and the game forbids you from backtracking to their locations due to space station breaking apart, once you return to the Oasis, Clyde informs you some items have fallen in there and you can fish them up using Strange Bait (which you should have plenty of from killing various enemies). This lets you finish your collection without needing to advance into New Game Plus.
• Apocalyptic Log: EVE can pick up memory sticks from the bodies of the dead scattered throughout Eidos 7, giving insight into events both before and after the Colony Drop disaster.
• Arc Words: May your memories live on, forever. A prayer for when someone dies and their memory core remains for preservation, as a way of keeping their memory alive.
• Arm Cannon: Lily upgrades the drone so that it may turn itself into a gun that EVE wears upon her arm, and can fire anything from bullets to rockets. It becomes mandatory to use inside Altess and Abyss Levoire since her sword and abilities are deactivated.
• Artistic License – Biology: EVE can somehow fish large oceanic fish including Bluefin Tuna, Great White Sharks, Whale Sharks, and even extinct Dunkleosteus from small bodies of water in the middle of the desert.
• Awful Truth: What EVE believes to be humanity are actually a race of androids called Andro-Eidos who replaced the real humanity after their leader Mother Sphere exterminated almost all of the original humans. Mother Sphere then altered history to fool the Andro-Eidos into believing they were the original humans. One of the Airborne Squad soldiers, Raven, discovers the truth and goes mad over it.
• Back Stab: Although in this case it's more of a back slice. Approaching most Naytibas from behind will give you an "Ambush" prompt, allowing you to give them a quick, unclean death.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: The second phase of the Juggernaut's boss fight sees it using its enormous hammer to spread fire around the whole arena.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The very opening of the game features the 7th Airborne Squadron in the middle of a massive invasion against the Naytiba hordes upon the shores of Earth, and EVE and Tachy having to fight their way through.
• Big Damn Heroes: Adam rescues EVE twice in the game, the first time being when he arrives in the nick of time to fend off the Unidentified Naytiba as it's about to finish off EVE in the prologue, and the second being when he steps in to deal with the thugs that ambush her in Xion.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • In the ending where EVE kills Adam, she successfully ends the threat of the Naytiba, but wipes out the very last traces of humanity in the process, ensuring Mother Sphere's dominance over Earth.
  • In the ending where EVE fuses with Adam, there is hope for humanity's eventual return. However, this comes at the cost of Adam sacrificing his own life and individuality, and Mother Sphere marking EVE as a traitor.
• Blade Lock: In the penultimate boss fight Raven will occasionally lock her blade with EVE's, during which she must overpower it.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Both endings where EVE becomes a hybrid of Andro-Eidos and the Elder Naytiba if she takes Adam's hand has Mother Sphere betray EVE and send an entire army of androids at her. The game ends with her fighting off endless hordes of android soldiers as the screen fades to black. The version of this ending where Lily lives shows after the credits that EVE is still standing and has annihilated the 8th Airborne Squadron.
• Boss Bonanza: The last stretch of the game is nothing but one boss fight after another. Spire 4 is the last area with regular enemies and exploration. At its end, you face Karakuri and, after a brief climbing without enemies, the Democrawler — leading up to fighting its true from as the Demogorgon in a rail shooting stage. Then you go to Xion to find and face the Unidentified — conveniently with a camp beforehand. After its defeat, you go to a new area which is a short path with a camp and a boss battle with Raven. Finally, after the fight, you go to the final area of the game, which is another linear path with the last camp of the game and then face the Final Boss — though who you face depends on whether you take Adam’s hand or not. You can access most of the world after the Unidentified Naytiba before moving on to Raven, but with all sidequests cancelled there's little point.
• Break Meter: Most enemies have balance points, which are depleted by certain attacks or Perfect Parries. When depleted they're stunned momentarily, and EVE can perform a powerful Retribution attack on them.
• Chainsaw Good: Several of the Naytiba designs feature chainsaws in one fashion or another. For example, the Stalker boasts a biological, bone-teethed chainsaw head it is more than happy to tear up EVE with. Likewise, the Belial Naytiba dual-wields chainswords.
• Collection Sidequest:
  • EVE enjoys collecting vintage pre-apocalyptic soda cans scattered across the game, and Lily even builds a machine to show off the collection. Every seven collected unlocks an upgrade to EVE's item carrying capacity, except getting all 49 unlocks the Black Pearl nanosuit.
  • Return to Clyde after catching at least one of each fish, and he rewards EVE with the "fisherman's dream": the Ocean Maid nanosuit.
• Colony Drop: Implied to be the reason the Earth is in the state it's in, with Mother Sphere dropping a colony as a last-ditch effort to win a catastrophic war and save the human species. Puzzling together the many little pieces of war history strewn along the path of the main protagonist's story eventually gives the full picture. The colony drop was done by Mother Sphere during the Final War after the Naytiba overran the four orbit elevators and threatened the Colony itself, leading her to detach 30 modules of the Colony and jettison them toward the surface.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Enemies will glow one of four colors when they are about to perform a special attack, and each one has a different response to combat it.
  • Blue: The enemy is about to perform a lunge and EVE can phase through them as they strike to stun them from behind.
  • Red: The enemy is about to unleash a flurry of parryable attacks in quick succession.
  • Yellow: An unblockable and heavy-hitting attack is about to be used. You can only perform a dodge to save yourself.
  • Purple: This attack can be rebounded, damaging the enemy while temporarily exposing a weak point where they take extra damage from your gunshots.
• Conspiracy Theorist: One of the sets of collectible documents is issues of a tabloid newspaper, The Truth, whose main author, Quinn, sensationalizes everything he reports on, between Eidos and Mother Sphere. The final volume of The Truth is a series of retractions on Quinn's many claims, enacted when Eidos had enough.
• Cool Sword: Blood Edge, the primary melee weapon EVE uses, can also shrink and double as a hairpin when not in use, or even turn into a Hover Board for getting around tough areas.
• Costume Porn: All of the nano suits to collect for EVE to wear are uniquely designed, ranging from being asset displays to modest, and there are a plethora to collect and view throughout the game.
• Counter-Attack: Some of the earliest but most important skills EVE can unlock are counter attacks that she can do when she pulls off a perfect parry or dodge. Not only do these reduce an enemy's poise, they also stun them for much longer than a regular attack and will often provide bonuses to EVE, such as increased damage or faster attack speeds, encouraging the player to perform longer, more damaging combos.
• Coup de Grâce Cutscene: Every mainline boss fight ends in one of these, featuring EVE using some very impressive acrobatics while stylishly taking out her aggressors.
• Creator Thumbprint: Equipment, upgrades, and consumables are heavily corporatized, with the manufacturer's logo being shown in the menu and descriptions that could come straight from the marketing department. SHIFT UP explore many of the same themes in their other work, Goddess of Victory: NIKKE.
• Cyborg: The humans on Earth are, as Lily calls them, the perfect fusion of man and machine. In truth, everyone except Adam is an android that only thinks they're human, with later generations, such as EVE and Tachy, having more convincing artificial organics.
• Degraded Boss:
  • The first instance of a Dozer is a non-respawning enemy just outside the parking lot on Eidos 7, given the same gravitas as Abaddon before it with an introductory cutscene. It joins the ranks of respawning enemies after EVE defeats the Corruptor.
  • EVE fights off a Gigas at the end of the Eidos 7 chapter. In the next chapter that covers Xion and the Wasteland, one sidequest leads her to facing another Gigas.
  • Inverted with the Abaddon, the first boss of the game. A sidequest lets EVE face off against another Abaddon but that one starts throwing out its lightning attacks from the get-go instead of halfway into the fight.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight:
  • In Matrix 11, Tachy regains herself after EVE fought Tachy to break the Naytiba’s hold on her, but she was too wounded to save and collapsed in EVE’s arms. All Tachy could do is give her final goodbye to EVE, and the former asking the latter to take the former’s memory stick and send it “among the stars.” After Patch 1.011, Eve obliges after defeating the Demogorgon by releasing Tachy’s memory stick into Earth’s atmosphere, allowing her to be among the stars forever.
  • In one particular ending, Cost of New Memories, halfway through the final battle Lily receives a nasty shock while trapped in Providence. After the battle EVE discovers in horror she cut Lily in half by accident while destroying Providence, all the while Lily fearfully cries that she doesn’t want to return to Mother Sphere; Lily dies in EVE’s arms shortly after, and she doesn’t take it well.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: On a fresh run, you can upgrade EVE's weapon up to level 15. On New Game Plus, this cap is raised to 40. This seems like a lot, but every improvement from 16 to 40 only gives +10 Attack, when every prior increment averaged around +50.
• Driven to Suicide: From the Memorysticks of the many dead humans you encounter, several of them have crossed the Despair Event Horizon and killed themselves. An excerpt from a Memorystick found early in the game:
  "EVE Protocol? Airborne Squad? Angel? All a bunch of bollocks! It's a show that Mother Sphere puts on. They don't help us. Mother Sphere doesn't care about us. I was such a pathetic fool to wait for that so-called salvation. I have no more regrets."
• Dyson Sphere: The "Return to the Colony" ending sees EVE and Lily return to the Colony in a shuttle provided by Mother Sphere. The last shot of the cutscene reveals the Colony is not a conventional space station but is actually a huge cluster of orbital platforms and solar collecting modules surrounding Earth, which is actually a more accurate representation of Freeman Dyson's original concept of the idea (instead of being an actual sphere).
• Earn Your Bad Ending: In order to get the Cost of New Memories ending where Adam ceases to exist after merging with EVE and Lily dies due to be unable to escape from Providence during the final battle you pretty much have to speed run through the game, avoiding side quests and picking up any information found in the world, which keeps you from maxing out Lily’s relationship.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Naytiba. These creatures infested Earth, forcing humankind to evacuate the planet. EVE is one of the few people capable of fighting Naytiba, and is specifically tasked with eliminating the leader of these monsters, the Elder Naytiba.
• Elevator Action Sequence: A cargo elevator in Matrix 11 comes to a stop thanks to a Hive blocking the way, and if not killed quickly, the Skullings it spawns will infest the corpses on the platform. Adam even says how much he hates the cliche before boarding the elevator, calling it "a classic trope."
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: The Demogorgon, the third Alpha Naytiba, is covered from top to bottom with nothing but eyeballs, including on said eyeballs themselves. It's a good thing they also function as the monster's weak spots and must be shot at to kill it.
• Face–Monster Turn: What ended up happening to Tachy after being attacked by the Unidentified Naytiba. While initially believed to be dead, it turns out she was instead captured and implanted with an Alpha core, causing her to become a Naytiba as a result and try to kill EVE.
• Fishing Minigame: An NPC named Clyde in the Great Desert Oasis will give EVE a fishing rod, which she can then use to fish in bodies of water throughout the world. Caught fish can be sold to Barry for money, and catching fish also earns points for Clyde's shop, which has rare and unique items. Catching every type of fish unlocks the Ocean Maid nanosuit.
• Floral Theme Naming: Other than Lily, in the Chinese version, EVE is named after the lotus, while Tachy is named after catalpa, connecting all three to white-to-pink flowers.
• Genki Girl: Unlike the ever-levelheaded EVE, Lily is typically upbeat and energetic, wearing her heart on her sleeve and freely expressing her feelings.
• Genre Mashup: Looks to combine elements of the Souls-like RPG games like Sekiro with those of Stylish Action games like NieR: Automata and Bayonetta.
• Godzilla Threshold: During the battle with the Demogorgon, EVE is launched into space and is in danger of falling into Earth's atmosphere. The only thing she is able to do now is overclock the drone railgun using her body cell in order to kill it, something Lily states holds a very real possibility of killing her.
• Government Conspiracy: Subverted. Some denizens of Xion as well as the tabloids believe there is something sinister going on within the city, led by the prophet Orcal and his sentinel officers, and that they are secretly rounding up people to turn them into Naytibas in the Cradle. As it turns out, there IS a secret Orcal is keeping, but it has nothing to do with him actually being a dictator; rather, that he is a reformed Alpha Naytiba.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Signs in-game appear in a number of different languages (including Chinese and Russian, as well as the expected English, even in closely connected areas), and some text and codes appear which use the Greek alphabet, with extensive use and reference to 'beta'.
• Guide Dang It!: The key to unlocking the third ending is completing a hidden level. The way to access said level is to knowingly cross the Point of No Return with a collection gauge filled. However, that gauge only appears at the moment things are collected and can easily be missed, meaning that the only way to tell if you've made it is to head to the final dungeon and see if Lily requests a detour. And if she doesn't there's no way to go back and continue filling the gauge. It should be noted that you pretty much have to deliberately avoid doing side quests and picking up any information in order to not get this ending.
• Heart Container: EVE can scavenge Body Cores and Beta Cores from other fallen Angels, which contribute to a max health or max Beta Energy upgrade.
• Heel Realization: EVE learns that she and all her military comrades that have been sent to Earth to save the human species from a genocidal invading species are actually the invaders themselves and have been waging a war of extermination against the human species.
• High-Voltage Death: Halfway through final battle of the Cost of New Memories ending Lily is unable to escape from Providence and is given a nasty shock that results in her dying in EVE's arms after the battle.
• Hub Level: Xion, the last intact city on Earth. It has pathways into the Wasteland and Great Desert zones, plus most of the game's shops and questgivers.
• Hub Under Attack: Adam gets a message that something is wrong in Xion on the way to Spire 4. When EVE and Lily get back they find the city is in flames after an attack from the Winged Alpha.
• Immune to Flinching: One skill unlocked early on allows EVE to make the last input of any combo string have this property, allowing them to forgo having to stop it to parry or dodge and instead just finish the combo.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Xion, instead of the more conventionally spelled Zion.
• In Medias Res: The game cuts from the end of the prologue after EVE passes out to her traveling with Adam into Eidos 7. Resting at certain campsites gives you flashbacks to show how EVE met Adam and got extracted from that dangerous situation.
• Internal Retcon: An early sidequest that involves trying to learn about the history of organic humans is stopped short by Mother Sphere outright censoring the content, which hints that some revisionism is taking place. As it turns out, EVE and the citizens of Xion aren't humans augmented by technology, but androids developed by Mother Sphere. The real humanity had turned themselves into Naytiba to fight against Mother Sphere.
• It Can Think: Some of the Elite Naytibas begin showing signs of intelligence in the Orbit Elevator, specifically:
  • Belial, who appears to be actively pursuing EVE throughout the base of the elevator and is stated to be displaying hatred towards EVE and Andro-Eidos as a whole.
  • Karakuri deliberately takes out the drone first before attacking EVE. Both she and Lily hypothesize that this is due to the Elite having combined itself with humans.
• Jiggle Physics: In abundance. EVE's every move causes her breasts to bounce, but it's not limited to her. Tachy, Lily and Raven all get in on the action as well. On a more unpleasant note, some of the porkier Naytiba like the Gigas and Hedgeboars feature jiggle physics as well.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: While simply playing through the main game will lay out the story's foundation well enough, many of the smaller details are hidden in sidequests and collectible documents which thoroughly flesh out the world's history. In addition to those, many of the descriptive texts for items such as Exospine modules and even EVE's outfits contain further information on the backstory of the setting.
• "Just Frame" Bonus: There are beneficial effects to blocking or dodging just before an attack hits:
  • A Perfect Parry totally negates damage, deals a point of damage to the enemy's balance, and charges the Beta meter.
  • A Perfect Dodge allows for Reflection moves and charges the Burst meter.
• Lag Cancel: Unlike other similar games, Stellar Blade allows more moments for players to cancel out of an animation to parry or dodge an attack. Specifically, the initial startup animation of every attack can be canceled into a parry or dodge, but not the actual active and recovery parts of the animation.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: Justified, as new information that would change EVE (and the player's) mind is still being revealed right up until the decision is made during the Boss Bonanza. The Legacies, Raven, Orcal, the people of Xion, Lily and even the Elder Naytiba themselves all contribute new information of viewpoints in the hour or so before EVE makes her decision.
• Loads and Loads of Sidequests: There are numerous sidequests to do for the people of Xion, with new ones becoming available as new areas open up. In addition to that, there's also the plentiful requests that can be done by reading the billboard in the city. These quests generally wield great incentive to complete as they allow for particular NPC storylines to progress and include rewards such as nanosuits and the materials to construct them, though as EVE herself states: "I don't need any kind of incentive to save someone."
• Long Hair Is Feminine: In her default outfit, EVE sports a very long and wafting pony-tail which flutters down to her knees.
• Lost Common Knowledge: Most concepts and arts from the world prior to the Naytibas emergence have long since been forgotten. EVE in particular questions a lot of things she comes across on her journey, such as a fishing rod, bottles of alcohol, and even musical instruments. Some of the people she meets, such as Barry the fishmonger and Clyde, have discovered such charms and are trying to keep them alive.
• Lucky Charms Title: Not present in the game's title, but early promotional material referred to the Naytiba as the "NA:tives", complete with the colon.
• Made of Iron: EVE takes powerful blows from all sorts of enemies and even falling debris, yet still fights on. Notably, getting thrown through a window on a station into space itself doesn't affect her in the slightest. Justified in that she's a Super-Soldier trained to be Earth's last line of defense against the Naytiba, and due to her not being exactly human.
• Madness Mantra: 
  • One of the side quests involves you having to assist with the finding of an item for June, a citizen who repeats "Treasure, my treasure" endlessly.
  • Raven's nanosuit description simply reads "Mother Sphere is a liar" seven times.
• Male Gaze: The game is unashamed to show off EVE's every curve as she battles her parasitic enemies. The way the camera lingers on Eve's assets during gameplay and cutscenes could make the case that the game is built on this.
• Money for Nothing: Even killing small Naytiba yields some Gold, and you'll accumulate a lot through your journey between slaughtered enemies and completed sidequests. Gold can be used to purchase supplies or crafting ingredients, but those come pretty cheap and there's plenty to find in the overworld. If you're purchasing ammo or supplies a lot, or going the mile to buy out every WB Pump from every camp, you'll likely end a thorough first playthrough with more money than you need, even without the help of a Money Multiplier.
• Mook Chivalry: Nope. This is what makes smaller Naytibas so dangerous - they love to stagger you while you're trying to time parries or evades on bigger, more dangerous enemies. A charged Beta Slash will clear the small ones out and usually stagger the bigger ones to give you the advantage again, but the range is shorter than it looks and if you're out of beta energy it won't work at all.
• Ms. Fanservice: EVE definitely counts, as her suit does absolutely nothing to hide her curves, not to mention the mountain of different nanosuits that can be placed on her. Aside from EVE, fellow Airborne Squad members Tachy and Raven also qualify. Xion's three Royal Guard fighters Rael, Quiel, and Shael go even further with Stripperific outfits that don't leave much to the imagination.
• Multiple Endings:
  • Return to the Colony: Requires EVE to reject Adam's proposal at the end the game. EVE ends up fighting and killing Adam, who turns out to be the Elder Naytiba. Mother Sphere appears to thank them for a successful mission, and gives them transport back to the Colony. Lily is reluctant as she wants to continue to help Xion, but EVE convinces her to come along, as they have to find out more of the truth from Mother Sphere.
  • Cost of New Memories: Requires EVE to accept Adam's proposal (but without maxing out her relationship with Lily), resulting in EVE and Adam fusing and fighting Mother Sphere, who takes control of the Providence armored suit with Lily inside, resulting in the latter's death when EVE wins. This is then followed by a Bolivian Army Ending as an entire army of airborne squad members come to take on EVE.
  • Making New Memories: Requires EVE to accept Adam's proposal after maxing out her relationship with Lily. This unlocks a new, secret level which and leads to a new chain of events that helps Lily survive the boss fight. The rest of the ending plays out the same as "Cost of New Memories" except with Lily's survival. In addition, a post-credit scene shows that EVE survives the attack by Mother Sphere's forces and returns to a rebuilt Xion as its new guardian.
• Neglected Sidequest Consequence: If you fail to complete any Xion merchant's sidequest before the point of no return, that merchant will not be present to continue to do business after you return to the ruined Xion from Spire 4. Additionally, neglecting to do sidequests also restricts how much of Lily's Bond meter fills, which will determine which of the endings you can get.
• New Game Plus: Added with the day one update, allowing you to carry over upgrades, money, items, and most collectibles other than passcodes, and to help you experience the endings you haven't seen yet. Chests or sidequests that would reward Exosuits or Gear thats you already have instead yield upgraded equipment, while sources of outfits you already have either give you an alternate color palette or just Vitacoins in their place. Your also unlock more capacity for upgrades to EVE's weapon, skills, healing tumbler, Drone, and max Health and Beta Energy. All this helps you handle the enemies which are now a lot tougher.
• New Meat: EVE may be a supersoldier but she's fresh out of training.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: Guardians and Heavy Guardians pretend to be statues until a victim gets close or are attacked. They tend to hide among their petrified comrades from previous battles against the Naytiba. Fortunately, ambushes can be easily detected with the drone's scanner.
• No Communities Were Harmed: The city of Eidos 7 is based off of Budapest, Hungary's District 7. Perhaps not coincidentally, the South Korean embassy in Hungary is also located in that same district.
• No Flow in CGI: Thoroughly averted for Eve's ponytail (and in general, but most notably with the hair of the guardians Quiel & Shael). It flutters and flows freely, including falling forward over either shoulder when she moves backwards or turns, briefly curling around limbs when she tumbles, and seems to be animated almost by the strand to the point it'll separate into multiple locks at times. The only blatantly unrealistic part is the hair apparently being frictionless, as even at full length her ponytail never actually gets tangled around anything or tied in knots.
• Notice This:
  • Splotches of yellow paint (which also light up in a scan) indicate ledges you can hang from or hidden pathways to secrets. Adam mentions that these markers are left behind by the Legion to guide other soldiers.
  • Anyone with new dialogue is marked with a green dot instead of the usual white. The same happens with rest points if EVE has new dialogue with her companions at a camp, and at repair stations if there are any upgrades you can manufacture.
• OOC Is Serious Business: Whenever you find another Angel's body to collect its Body or Beta Core, EVE sends them off with the usual "May your memories live on, forever" prayer. When EVE discovers enough of the Awful Truth in the depths of Abyss Levoire, it shakes her enough that she can't bring herself to pray for her fallen comrades past this point.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: While most of the game is a Hack and Slash based action-adventure, the Altess/Abyss Levoire sequences switch things up. The game effectively becomes a Resident Evil style horror packed with crammed, dimly lit corridors, jumpscares and forcing EVE to only use the drone gun when all of her other functions are disabled.
• Photo Mode: Added in the 1.009 update, along with a quartet of photography quests that reward you with new Nanosuits.
• Point of No Return:
  • After completing Abyss Levoire, when you talk to Adam in Xion and decide to head to Spire 4, the game gives the Polite version by warning you that you can't progress any unfinished sidequests and your ability to travel becomes restricted from this point on.
  • After you return to Xion from Spire 4 and regain the ability to travel somewhat freely, your next story objective is to look for Adam. This one has no warning, and deciding to search for Adam locks you into the final areas of the game, so this is your last opportunity to scrounge the earlier levels for missed collectibles before committing to the ending.
• Power-Up Letdown: Of an 11th-Hour Superpower at that. Choosing to fuse with Adam gives EVE a shiny new Alpha form... and nothing else, as she takes on Providence with exactly the same moves and power as before. Zig-Zagged on the Making New Memories ending path, where Lily eventually manages to extract herself from Providence... and without a hostage forcing EVE to check her swings, the last segment of the fight is an utter Curb-Stomp Battle, and EVE is functionally invulnerable during the Post Final Zero-Effort Boss.
• Prolonged Prologue: Zig-Zagged. The actual prologue is concise and to the point. Then the player has to complete Act 1 of the game, consisting of multiple environments and bosses and collecting two different flavors of Plot Coupon, before they get a clear mission statement for EVE or any idea what anyone's long-term goals are.
• Relationship Values:
  • Completing certain sidequests and finding certain collectibles builds up Lily's relationship meter, which is a factor that determines which of the endings you experience.
  • Buying from the merchants' inventories builds up their relationship meter, which expands their inventory at certain thresholds. Once it's maxed out, they unlock a sidequest.
• Rewatch Bonus: Going through New Game Plus with full knowledge of the plot lets the player pick up bits of foreshadowing they may have glossed over on a first playthrough.
• Robot Girl: Enya is a local of Xion who is the sole singer at a lounge, and whose entire body with the exception of her head is entirely robotic.
• Robot Maid: Mixed with Meido, Arisa, who greets Eve upon reaching the orbital elevator, is one (stress on the robot, she comes across as much more programmed than any of the Andro-Eidos), complete with bonnet and frills, though her overall outfit is a lot more conservative than one might expect compared to others among the cast.
• Scenery Gorn: Due to the Earth now being in tatters, every wide-open area has large arrays of this, from the Great Desert and its half buried, destroyed buildings spread out across the dunes, to Eidos 9 and 7 featuring a broken down theme park and a flooded shopping plaza respectively. The vastness of it all is enough to even captivate EVE and Adam. When you take a ride up the space elevators of Spire 4, you get a very good view of just how torn up Earth's landscape has become.
• Sensual Spandex:
  • Cutscenes often showcase EVE's skintight suit. Slightly downplayed in that she gets a non-revealing jacket as well. Of course, this is only her most iconic outfit, as she is able to take on a multitude of clothing options, both revealing and comparatively modest.
  • Un-equipping any suit/outfit from EVE makes her default to the Skin Suit, which removes her armor and has her strutting around in a skin-colored bodysuit covered by a thin exoskeleton, giving her the appearance of implied nudity. It also disables the Shield, making the game much more difficult.
  • The demo shows her in Painted-On Pants and a red long-sleeved blouse. The gloss on the former can give the impression that they have no seat.
• Shock and Awe: 
  • Abaddon has the ability to summon lightning with its swords to both imbue them and strike from afar.
  • Using Beta Skills can also electrify EVE's sword, causing extra bouts of damage. This appears to be something most Airborne Squadron members are able to do.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the puzzles in Altess Levoire involves EVE walking over floor tiles marked with PlayStation button labels in the correct order.
  • In Eidos 7, the name of an abandoned bar, "Bar 99" is apparently an homage to the titular characters Motorball number in Alita: Battle Angel. The Alita film, and its original manga were one of Kim Hyung-tae's influences for the title.
  • In Matrix 11, there's a setpiece where EVE has to escape a train that's falling off an exploded bridge, similar to how Nathan Drake had to do the same in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.
  • The Sporty Yellow outfit is a reference to the Bride's yellow tracksuit from Kill Bill (itself a homage to Bruce Lee's tracksuit from Game of Death). It even has "Kill Kill" printed on the right shoulder in font similar to that used for Kill Bill's title.
  • Black Wave is a very revealing black and red take on a schoolgirl uniform not unlike Senketsu from Kill la Kill.
  • One of the memory sticks that EVE can pick up contains a message titled "Emil's Lament.''
  • One of Eve's Burst attack skills she can use is called Tempest, which is essentially a Vergil's Judgement Cut End.
  • When climbing from a ledge, EVE will sometimes do a fast handstand into a flip, similar to how Lara would in the original Tomb Raider games.
  • When EVE picks up a soda can collectible she displays it to the camera while a short jingle plays in a manner strongly reminiscent of the item acquisition animations in The Legend of Zelda.
• Sole Survivor: Everyone in the 7th Airborne is wiped out in the first ten minutes of the game except for EVE, who has to carry on the mission alone.
• Space Elevator: During humanity's golden age, four orbit elevators were built that led to the heavens. In the game's present, only one of these, Spire-IV, is left intact and functional after the other three were destroyed during the Final War. The top of Spire-IV turns out to be where the last Alpha Naytiba is located and EVE must ascend the elevator, which at one point gives a spectacular view of the world as the platform rises to the upper atmosphere.
• Spiking the Camera: Should the player leave the camera pointed at EVE for too long, she'll eventually notice and start to stare back at them.
• Stripperiffic: It depends on the outfit she’s wearing. EVE does not dress modestly by default. Her default outfit is a Latex Space Suit studded with hexagonal armor pieces/shield generators that does precisely nothing to hide her figure; the unlockable Skin Suit is that same kind of space suit sans armor and colored the same as her skin, which makes her look naked. Her civilian attire looks like a coat of paint from the waist down and she has quite a bit of costumes that show off her body. She does have the option to wear more modest clothing with some of her other outfits, however, with some of them completely covering her up like the Daily Biker, Daily Sailor, Fluffy Bear, and Sporty Yellow costumes.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: EVE can swim for as long as she wants and dive as deep as she can provided she's not in electrified water. This is due to the Body Cell implanted in her and every human, which allows her to operate in many environments without needing special equipment. Eidos 9's seawater says otherwise, though — EVE can only swim in it for a limited time before she drowns.
• Super-Soldier: EVE and all her fellow 7th Airborne Squadron warriors are bionically enhanced to be able to fight the Naytiba.
• Swiss-Army Gun: EVE's scanner drone can transform into a gun with various modes like a machine gun, rocket launcher, shotgun and a laser for the really tough enemies.
• Sword Beam: One of EVE's Beta skills is the ability to fire waves of energy from her sword to zap enemies at a distance.
• Take That!: The "Information: Can" data bank entry includes a light jab at NFTs, explaining that beverage companies printed them onto their cans and marketed them as collectibles with "futuristic value." The entry goes on to note that "it is difficult to explain what value they have."
• Tomato in the Mirror: After some investigation on Earth, EVE finds out that she and the rest of the people she has been sent to protect aren't humans, but a race of androids, which also is a Robotic Reveal.
• Transhuman:
  • As revealed early on (and is common knowledge In-Universe), the human heart has been replaced by the Body Cell. This allows humans to operate on the ocean floor and in a hard vacuum, and as long as the body cell is intact the body around it can be mangled or modified with no lasting harm. Very few people beyond adolescence look fully human anymore; Eve only does because she's made of extremely advanced parts designed for that, and "maintenance" and "spare parts" are used in place of medical attention. Even if someone is killed, if their Memorystick^*spelled as such In-Universe can be recovered, the record of their existence can be added to a collective pool of knowledge. It's been like this for so long that any history of fully organic humans is half-remembered scraps thanks to being actively suppressed by Mother Sphere. Later events reveal this strain of "humanity" aren't descended from humans at all.
  • Altess/Abyss Levoire reveals there were humans who, in desperation to protect themselves, started conducting experiments to transform themselves into more powerful beings. The project was expedited before the transformations were perfected, which resulted in them becoming monstrous and trading sapience for animal-like sentience. The end result was becoming the Naytibas, remnants of humanity who mutated themselves into monstrous forms in a last-ditch attempt to win a Forever War against Mother Sphere's Andro-Eidos, who now think they're the last human holdouts. In exchange, most Naytibas are no longer sapient beings, the exceptions being a handful of Alpha Naytibas like Adam and Orcal.
• Unreliable Narrator: It's subtle, but the character guide and enemy gallery are clearly written by EVE in-universe. Late in the game the entries start including things EVE intuits that aren't said out loud, comments based on opinion, and arguably jumping to conclusions in places.
• Variable Mix: The background music for areas like Eidos 7 has two different versions: a calmer, more subdued mix for exploring the area, and a more intense mix for fighting enemies.
• Video Game Perversity Prevention: An interesting example in that it only applies to the NieR: Automata crossover outfits and doubles as another reference to that game, attempting to manipulate the camera to look up EVE's skirt will result in her kicking the the camera away.
• Virtual Paper Doll: EVE has a number of unlockable outfit and hairstyle options.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Though occasionally present in the flesh, Adam serves this function on the field, communicating to EVE via his drone. Lily also chips in when she joins later on.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The general premise of an action game where a beautiful woman fights in post-apocalyptic Earth against alien invaders for the survival of the remnants of humanity is not too unlike the framework of NieR: Automata, as well as the game Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, which is also heavily inspired by Automata and outright had a crossover event with it where 2B could be acquired in NIKKE. This also includes the fact that the protagonists are Ridiculously Human Robots, except EVE and Lily don't realize this until the reveal.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Downplayed. EVE hates swimming, something she has to do several times throughout the story. She doesn't really know why she doesn't like to swim, only that it reminds her of when she was born.
• Worf Had the Flu: The game justified EVE's lack of action at the end of the prologue as a combination of shellshock and having taken significant damage when her pod crashed. After some repairs and going into battle more mentally prepared she's much more competent. The only time she ever needs rescuing again is after having a trap sprung on her in circumstances where she'd been conditioned to let her guard down.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Raven warns EVE that even if she completes her mission as instructed, Mother Sphere would likely discard her, especially when she's learned things she should not know.
  • In the ending where EVE decides to fuse with Adam, Mother Sphere personally congratulates EVE for successfully eliminating the Naytiba. However, since EVE has now fulfilled her purpose and is now a threat to Mother Sphere, she turns on EVE and sends the 8th Airborne Squadron after her.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: Password-locked doors and containers are jammed until EVE finds the password, so even knowledge from prior playthrough won't allow getting into them early. Dialogue mentions "quantum passwords", implying the keypads don't even have a correct password until EVE has been told what it is.