Common Sense Media Review
By Chad Sapieha
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Short puzzler has strong heroine, unanswered questions.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
Stela
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
STELA is set in a desolate and creepy world inhabited by aggressive animals and tall, spooky shadow men with glowing eyes. Our heroine wakes in a cave and ventures out to discover these and other threats as she begins exploring, working her way through barns, forests, and more exotic locales. She doesn't fight back, but instead outfoxes her enemies, setting up barriers to block and escape them. Players use the game's simple controls -- you can move, climb, jump, grab and push things -- to do things such as shut gates, push boxes and carts, flip levers, and scramble up obstacles. There are no secondary objectives, such as collecting items or learning new abilities; this is a game purely about surviving threats and moving forward toward an unknown ending.
Is It Any Good?
While this feels like the sort of game that ought to have important things on its mind to convey to players, it really doesn't. Stela succeeds in creating beauty in its ruined environments thanks to a minimal yet atmospheric graphical style that includes the hero herself, whose bright hues stand in contrast to the world and make her a symbol of hope in a land weirdly empty of humanity. The moody music matches the visual tone, creating a fitting soundscape that conveys unease without being abrasive or noisy. In this respect, Stela shares company with beautiful and beloved indie masterpieces such as Limbo and Inside.
But unlike many of the games from which it clearly took inspiration, the experience never quite manages to coalesce into something with a message. As you work your way past enemies and through hazards, solving a variety of contextual puzzles along the way, nothing's ever explained. Who is Stela? What has happened to the world? Does she know where she's going? What's driving her forward? Even after the credits roll, you'll be left to speculate on answers to all of these questions. Ambiguity is perfectly acceptable in storytelling, so long as you begin with a few basic, well-established facts and premises. Alas, these don't exist in Stela. It will likely leave players feeling either frustrated for lack of resolution or dumb for not understanding what they just saw. It goes easy on both the eyes and ears, but it leaves the mind unsatisfied.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about screen time. Stela is a relatively short game that can be completed in a couple of hours, but is it better to experience it all at once, like a movie, or would it be more fun broken into a few sessions?
Stela doesn't fight back, but instead uses her wits to get out of tough situations, so is this a stereotype that women aren't strong enough to fight? Should it instead be seen as a positive that she's able to use her smarts to avoid conflict?
Game Details
- Platform : Apple Arcade
- Pricing structure : Paid
- Available online? : Available online
- Publisher : SkyBox Labs
- Release date : October 11, 2019
- Genre : Puzzle
- Topics : Adventures
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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