The 2024 action adventure title Stellar Blade which recently came out on the PC platform, is confirmed to have sold 1 million copies in just 3 days, making the overall sales of the game a total of 3 million units across both PS5 and the PC. The post-apocalyptic single player game has also set a new all-time peak concurrent player record on Steam this past weekend, with a staggering 192,078 players along with a “Very Positive” rating on Valve’s platform so far.
Also in an interview with a Korean publication titled This is Game, Shift Up CEO Kim Hyung-tae has said that a sequel to Stellar Blade can come out as early as 2027 though it’s far from certain as of right now.
“Yes, that’s right. As we were preparing the DLC, the volume grew more than expected, so we changed direction and proceeded with the next work. However, there have been many changes since then. Currently, all manpower has been invested in the PC version, so it’s hard to say that the next work has been developed much. Right now, we’re in the R&D period, thinking a lot about ‘how we can show the vision of the next generation.
To be honest, we’ve been fully committed to releasing the PC version following the PS version, so now is the time to do proper R&D. It would be great if it came out in 2027, but there are only three years left, so I can only say that we’ll do our best. However, I can guarantee that we’ll present a great work.”
In the interview, Kim Hyung-Tae also confirmed that they’re aware of the narrative being the weakest part of Stellar Blade and explained the developers aim to fix it in the sequel:
“In the early stages of development, we planned to include detailed settings such as the reason the main character changes clothes in the story. However, as production progressed, the cost of producing cutscenes became too much, and eventually, for the sake of efficiency, we had no choice but to reduce cutscenes that supplemented the world view or character narratives outside of the main plot. That’s how we were barely able to complete the game. It’s also because the development manpower pool or system for narrative-centered games has not yet been fully established in Korea.”
“It is true that there were some shortcomings in the narrative in that regard, and if we hastily supplement this part in Stellar Blade now, it may clash with the story that users have accepted so far, so we are cautious. However, if we are given the opportunity to create the next work, I think we will be able to present it with a sufficiently rich narrative.”
His words do seem honest and sincere, so we can certainly hope for a sequel to the highly popular action title with a narrative that far surpasses the original. Though a release window of 2027 seems unlikely considering the average development cycle of a AAA game happens to be around 3-4 years.
The PC version of Stellar Blade also comes with a whole suite of features such as unlocked framerate, AI upscaling via Nvidia’s DLSS 4 and AMD’s FSR 3, both Japanese and Chinese voiceovers, ultrawide display supports, higher resolution environment textures, and DualSense support for haptic feedback and trigger effects. The game also has a bonus Boss battle in the PC version, along with 25 new in-game outfits for the main character.
