Korean company Shift UP encountered many difficulties while developing Stellar Blade, one of the country’s few AAA projects. In a recent interview with INVEN, CEO Hyun-Tae Kim recalled a time when the company only had enough to pay employees for three months, and discussed his previous concerns about the project.
Kim admitted that during development, Shift UP made offers for Stellar Blade to multiple investors and major game publishers, but was rejected. According to him, investors were convinced the game would not pay off and viewed it more as a risk than a valuable asset to the company. There are even hints that if Shift UP abandons Stellar Blade and chooses another project, its market valuation will be higher.
“During the development of Stellar Blade, there was a stage where the company found that it could only pay wages for about three months.”
Considering Stellar Blade (then still called Project Eve) debuted in 2019, this likely happened before Shift UP started making money from NIKKE. The game was released on mobile devices in 2022 and subsequently became very popular in Japan.
King admits that at the time, he wasn’t confident about Starblade’s success. He recalls moments when he questioned whether making such a game in South Korea was the right decision. Despite his misgivings, he and his team continued working on the project, even impressing former Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida with an early prototype so much that he offered the company a contract to publish the game through Sony.
Development of Stellar Blade has been successfully completed, and Kim attributes this success largely to the players. He noted that while Shift UP can’t “get everything perfect” and “will definitely make mistakes,” the company will make every effort to make games that repay the support it receives.