Shift Up has confirmed that the upcoming Stellar Blade 2 won't be published by Sony, with the developer set to self-publish the sequel.
In its latest earnings report, Shift Up reported that "development of the next Stellar Blade title is progressing smoothly, on track to meet our targeted quality standards." This is good news for anyone waiting for the sequel to be announced, as CEO Hyung-Tae Kim previously said it would not be shown until it was good enough to be revealed. However, the studio also revealed that the Sony publishing deal that the original game had wouldn't be the case for its sequel. This was speculated about earlier this year when fans noticed job listings that mentioned expanding its publishing efforts.
In what's bound to be great news for anyone who was upset about waiting a year for the PC version of the game, the studio notes, "Starting with this next title, Shift Up will transition to a first-party service model." Shift Up explains, "This will allow us to lead marketing strategies that fully reflect the distinctive identity of the Stellar Blade IP, and we expect to communicate the unique appeal of its universe to players more directly and effectively."
Obviously, Stellar Blade was a massive hit upon release, and Shift Up effectively confirms that this is why it took the plunge to being a solo act this time around, saying, "Building on the strong fandom and evergreen IP status established by the first Stellar Blade, we are formulating an optimal go-to-market strategy designed to maximize sales and reach a broad global audience from day one."
Granted, this doesn't necessarily mean that Stellar Blade 2 will launch on Xbox and Nintendo platforms on day one. After two games published by Sony, the Nioh franchise moved to self-publishing with Nioh 3 earlier this year. But as far as the release strategy goes, the only real change was that the PC version of the game was released on day one, rather than a bit down the road, as with the original two. Although Shift Up spoke about additional platforms in an earnings call last year, so there's still a bit of hope.
