While on its surface Stellar Blade might seem to follow a formula similar to Nier: Automata, its gameplay takes more cues from the Soulslike genre. Despite scaling back on some of the Soulslike genre's more frustrating elements, Stellar Blade still retains one annoying design choice that fans of the genre will likely be familiar with as a staple of FromSoftware games. However, through Stellar Blade's more forgiving approach to its Soulslike design, the game offers players a way to mitigate some of the difficulty surrounding the classic FromSoftware level design of hiding enemies in inconvenient locations.