Ever since its release last month in April 2024, Stellar Blade has continued to receive positive reception from its players while simultaneously embracing SHIFT UP’s character design aesthetic.

We got a fortunate chance to meet and interview Hyung-Tae Kim, game director and CEO of SHIFT UP, and the development team about the various aspects of the game, from character design to future plans for the game.

[Interview slightly edited for clarity.]

Developer Reaction

Stellar Blade is SHIFT UP’s first foray into the AAA game development industry, having previously worked on mobile gacha titles such as Goddess of Victory: NIKKE and the now discontinued Destiny Child. Even the developers themselves didn’t know what to expect out of the game’s release despite the immense effort put into it.

“The team was absolutely thrilled by the incredible reception the game has received, especially in terms of the combat and music. As this is our first AAA game, we were uncertain about what to expect upon release. The overwhelming interest and attention have both surprised and delighted us.”

“We are particularly energised by players’ comments, such as, “This is a lot more fun than it looks.” Such feedback has been a significant morale boost for our developers. We’re very grateful for the enthusiasm and positive responses from the gaming community.”

Tachy’s Boss Design

Tachy’s fight is one of the more memorable encounters that players will go through across their gameplay, thanks to the relationship players will have with her before her… departure. We asked the developers about the inspirations behind her boss design.

“The inspiration behind Tachy’s boss design actually has an interesting backstory,” they answered. “There was a time when Mr Hyung-Tae Kim was sick for a bit while he wasn’t doing so well in terms of his health and spent some time at the hospital. And at that time, the concept art team lead was working on the design and he drew the legs and the wing part of the character.”

“But then he (the concept art team lead) came to Mr Kim saying that he couldn’t finish the body part. So while he (Mr. Kim) was trying to recover, he drew the body of the character design and that’s how the design was completed. There wasn’t a specific motive behind this or inspiration behind this design, but it was more about looking at each other’s drawings, getting inspiration from them and completing it together by complementing each other.”

Adam Lore

Where there is an Eve, you can be safe to assume there will be an Adam as well, and Stellar Blade is no exception to that rule. In fact, Adam plays quite an integral role both in the game and Eve’s lore. Seeing as the development of his plotline unravels gradually throughout the game, we wondered if the developers conceived his lore and involvement with Eve from the start of the game’s production.

The developers responded, “The lore of Adam and his involvement with Eve was conceived relatively early in the game’s production. This decision was made while we were developing the overall story. We wanted this aspect of the plot to be somewhat predictable, allowing players to see it coming rather than keeping it a secret until the very end.”

“This approach applied not only to Adam’s story but also to other lore as well. Our goal was for players to naturally uncover these plot points as they progressed. Since plot twists are not particularly novel in 2024, we aimed for players to focus more on the choices they make throughout the game.”

Missing Information on Purpose

For those who like exploring the nook and crannies of a game lore, from character nuances to worldbuilding details, Stellar Blade might cause a certain amount of frustration due to the lack of proper explanation for certain story elements. Much to our surprise, the developers revealed to us that this was, in fact, fully intentional.

“For example, the relationship between Raven and Adam, what kind of relationship they have or what stories they have. While the developers have created detailed stories for these characters, Mr. Kim, the creative director, deliberated on whether all these details needed to be fully explained in the game. He ultimately decided that it would be more engaging for players to piece together these stories themselves.”

“By observing the dialogues, behaviors, and actions of characters like Raven, players can infer the nature of their relationships and backstories. Mr. Kim believed this approach would make the experience more interactive and enjoyable, allowing players to use their imagination to fill in the gaps.”

Stellar Blade 2?

Speaking of imagination, the ending of Stellar Blade seems to leave a heavy implication that there’ll be a continuation to EVE’s story… or maybe even a sequel. Upon hearing this, the development team confirmed our suspicions, stating, “The story was designed with a larger narrative in mind, one that couldn’t be fully explored in just one game.”

“We’ve carefully controlled how much of the story is revealed in this installment. For example, there’s the story about mothers who fear the new humanity, their existence and what they pursue, all these things. In terms of things to talk about and stories to tell, we are definitely interested in expanding and exploring these themes further in future projects, whatever form they might take.”

Is There a Canon Ending?

While we were on the topic of the game’s ending, minor spoiler, the game does change its ending depending on your relationship with Lily. The game never tells you what this relationship is supposed to indicate, and it has become quite a fun little mystery to dig into.

But that said, we asked the developers about which ending they thought was the most in line with their vision on how the story will go further, assuming the game gets a sequel.

“That’s a difficult question because each ending holds its own significance and meaning.” They pondered, “It’s not about one ending being more correct than the others; it’s about the player’s choice.”

“When developing the story initially, Mr. Kim viewed the world from a more pessimistic perspective. This was during a tough period in his life. He envisioned the true ending as humanity being completely replaced by a new civilization.”

“However, after overcoming those challenges, he came to believe that every ending has value and is right in its own way. If the story continues in a sequel, he might have to choose one of these endings to build upon, but he doesn’t know yet which it would be. It’s something that will be determined in the distant future.”

More Mann Please

Personally we felt that certain characters in the game did not get enough love. For example, Mann, who does have an important role as the leader of the Sentinels, but he ends up barely existing in the story. Some players even thought that he was going to be a boss, only to end up disappointed.

The developers echoed our sentiments for the character, saying, “regarding that character, we had a lot of different scenarios for him. Indeed, there were extensive plans for his character, with various scenarios considered. While it might constitute a spoiler for some, the limited presence of Mann in the base game was due to time constraints. But there was just too much to show and we didn’t have enough time to show all of it in this base game. So whatever method that will be in the future, we definitely want to be able to tell more stories about him to the players in the future.”

Too Much For A Single Game

As the developer team has acknowledged throughout this interview, a lot of content and story had to be cut out from the base game due to their sheer volume. We questioned the development team if they foresee this issue will continue to pose a challenge for their future game development projects.

They answered, “Hyung-Tae Kim believes that no game developer can tell their whole story in a single game because it’s just so fast. But especially more so for us, because this was our first title. Now that we know how much we can do and in what way. So if we’re to continue with this project in the future, we’ll be able to tell a lot more meticulous, detailed and solid stories.”

Korean Reception

With all the positive reception Stallear Blade is receiving internationally, we wondered how the game was faring in its home lands. To this question, the developers prefaced their answer by acknowledging, “There were not so many console players in Korea because the console game market in Korea is very small. Consequently, the console players are also pretty small compared to the world.

“But, there were not that many console games that were made in Korea from a Korean developer. So a lot of Korean users, just from the fact that a game like this came out of Korea, sent us a lot of love and support. Also, the story was written originally in Korean, so we were able to deliver that intention more clearly to Korean users who all enjoyed it.

“It wasn’t just two rounds of gameplay, but there were people who were playing the entire game up to eight or nine times. So, we felt like we were able to give them some sort of gift. And it was very exciting to see the reception.”

Post-Launch Content Plans

Now that the game has been out for over a month, players and fans have been patiently waiting for more post-launch content. In a previous interview we had conducted with game director and SHIFT UP CEO Hyung-Tae Kim, he confirmed that the game will eventually get a collaboration with their other active title, Goddess of Victory: NIKKE. So, we asked the developers about their plans regarding further post-launch content, or whether there’s a chance the game might get a bigger DLC or collaboration with other IPs.

“There will be a lot of regular updates,” they answered. “One of our main plans would be releasing more charming outfits, so please stay tuned. And this upcoming update will include a boss challenge mode as well. Here, you can also expect something new. We can’t tell you clearly at this point, like what is coming up next. But then it’s definitely worth waiting for.

AAA vs Gacha Monetization

Coming from a company that previously worked on mobile game titles, we wondered how the team at SHIFT UP fared in their first experience with a AAA game monetization structure where players pay a flat cost upfront as opposed to gachas where most of the monetization comes from microtransactions.

“Of course, they follow the same category of games, but then they’re very different for mobile games. From the moment you launch a new game, you’re now together with the users and then you go through everything together. You’re constantly keeping your eye on what characters or stories the users are paying more attention to, what they love the most and so on. And then depending on that, we can continuously adjust the next upcoming content and so on.

“So the moment of launch is very important. And even after the launch, we hired even more people for the console game teams, it’s more about the ups and downs you go throught in that compressed time. And then of course, after the launch, you could decide to stay. But then pretty much one story has finished. So it’s like it has wrapped up.”

“So in that way, the production method and business models are very different. So for example, when we were making this console game, we thought it could be risky or dangerous to just bring mobile business model points to the console without any planning. So Mr Kim always wanted to stick to that and stick to the traditional console business formula. For mobile games, it’s thanks to the amount of love that the users pay us that we can prepare more rewards in return to the users. But if you bring just that without considering anything else to the console game, it might be dangerous. So we wanted to keep that in mind.”

Final Remarks

As we wrapped up our interview, we asked the development team of Stellar Blade if they would like to share anything with their fans and players.

“This was our first result. Stellar Blade was our first result in cooperation with Sony Interactive, for us to be able to present to the user. So that itself was already a great honour because it’s close to a miracle for a game to actually come out to the market and be presented to the users because we have seen so many cases where many games never make it to that step.”

“So we did our best to be able to present it to the users. And we were very happy to see that it was actually very well received and people are happy about what we came up with. Of course, there were some parts that we lacked, but then I’ll also have some successful parts as well. So we like everyone to keep an eye on us and see how we grow in the future.”

“We’re going to do everything possible to turn this stellar blade title into a very amazing game, and we want to be able to show people how we step it up each time as we progress in the future. So we’re very thankful for all the anticipation and love that the players have shown, and we genuinely, truly love you all.”

Here concludes the interview, and we would like to thank Hyung-Tae Kim and the development team at SHIFT UP for taking the time to answer all of our questions regarding Stellar Blade.

Stellar Blade is currently a PlayStation 5 exclusive, but the developers are currently considering a future PC release for the game.