The video game industry is a big and complicated place. That’s just how it works. You can be developing something truly great, but if you don’t have the right publisher to support you, you might not get the attention you feel you deserve. Sometimes, you let the game speak for itself, and that was indeed the case with Stellar Blade. You can see why the game is special with just a look. The team behind it, Shift Up, went all out on the game’s visuals, its unique world, its stunning protagonist, and its action-packed gameplay system. The team put in a lot of work, and one person who saw that instantly was Shuehei Yoshida.
If you forgot, Shuehei Yoshida was the former head of PlayStation Studios and was with the Sony indie team for the last few years before he finally left the company. In a chat with Last Stand Media, he revealed that he was asked to go check out “Project Eve” in the days just before the global pandemic and that he was the one who helped get it signed within Sony:
“The third party relations team that I worked closely with… they looked at Asia China, Korea, as a future growth region in terms of creating games. They looked at what Shift Up started working on, ‘Project EVE’, and they really liked it. And they asked me to go visit the studio right before covid happened to check out the game and play the game, and talk with Kim-san. I became a fan and promoted the game internally ‘come on this is a great game, sign it up.'”
He wasn’t wrong in the slightest. Stellar Blade turned out to be not just a great game but a good seller on the PS5 as well, getting over 1 million units in under two months. Plus, it’s built up a bunch of goodwill with fans via the numerous crossovers that it’s done with various franchises, more of which are on the way.
To that end, the game will make its PC debut soon, as revealed by the latest State of Play. The twist is that the game isn’t just getting a port; it’s getting even more content added to its story! Could it be teasing a sequel with this new content? You’ll just have to play to find out!
Regardless, Shift Up owes a great deal to Yoshida, as he knew this game was great, and both Shift Up and Sony profited because of it.
