After registering promising activity numbers on Steam, Stellar Blade surpassed 3 million copies sold worldwide, according to specialized Korean media.
The action game from Shift Up studio sold one million copies on PC within three days, outperforming its already impressive debut on PlayStation 5, where the game amassed two million sales over more than a year.
In an interview published the day after the PC launch, CEO Hyung-Tae Kim expressed gratitude for the affection the game is receiving, stating, “We were hoping to surpass 100,000 simultaneous players.”
Instead of developing substantial DLC for Stellar Blade, Shift Up is now focusing on accelerating the development of the game’s sequel, which may be released as early as 2027.
In an interview with the South Korean website This is Game, Hyung-tae disclosed that the original intention was to develop a DLC, but as the content expanded significantly, they decided to convert it into Stellar Blade 2.
While preparing the DLC, the volume grew larger than anticipated, so we decided to shift focus to a sequel,” said Hyung-Tae Kim, leader of Shift Up. “However, there have been many changes since then. Currently, all our staff is focused on the PC version, making it hard to say that the sequel is significantly developed. We can say this is a period of conducting R&D, thinking deeply about ‘how we can showcase the vision for the next generation.’ Frankly, after dedicating ourselves to the PS5 launch and subsequently to the PC version, now is the time we can truly engage in proper R&D. It would be wonderful if it were released in 2027, but that’s still three years away, so all I can say is that we’ll do our best. However, I can assure you that we will present a remarkable work.
During the interview, Hyung-Tae also acknowledged that narrative was not Stellar Blade’s strong suit and thus Shift Up hopes to evolve this aspect in the sequel.
I acknowledge that the narrative was indeed a weaker aspect. The main gameplay system was completed relatively quickly, but what posed the greatest challenge was the creation of the cutscenes. In an action game where narrative is important, cutscenes play a crucial role as it is difficult to convey the entire story solely through action.
During the initial stages of development, we planned to include details such as the reason for the main character’s costume change within the story. However, as production progressed, the cost associated with creating cutscenes became prohibitively high. For efficiency reasons, we had to reduce the number of scenes used to develop the narrative or the background information about characters outside the main plot. In Korea, there is currently an absence of a well-established developer community and specialized systems for narrative-based games.
It is true that the story sometimes lacked depth, and attempting to fill it hastily in Stellar Blade could conflict with what players have already accepted. This is why we remain cautious about it. However, if we have the opportunity to create a future title, we believe we can offer a much richer and more complete narrative.
The success of Stellar Blade on PC, which became the single-player most sold title on PlayStation, is largely attributed to Asia, with China playing a significant role. PCs are notably more popular than consoles in this region. “A majority of the PC sales come from China, thanks to the availability of Chinese dubbing (which is not available on consoles) and regional pricing ($38 compared to $60),” noted market expert Daniel Ahmad.
According to SteamScout data, 52% of Stellar Blade user reviews on Steam are in Chinese. English accounts for 26%, Korean 8.5%, and Japanese less than 1%.
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