Stellar Blade director Hyung-Tae Kim says players can go wild with their mods, as ShiftUp doesn't plan on tackling mods, but he wishes that modders would work on more elaborate mods than the ones we're seeing currently.
After over a year of PS5 exclusivity, Stellar Blade launched on PC last week, and did pretty well, beating out the PC launches of God of War and Ghost of Tsushima and becoming PlayStation Studio's most popular release on PC behind Helldivers 2 (which frankly went nuts on PC, to the point I don't see Sony beating it anytime soon). And with the popularity of Stellar Blade – a game in which the looks of the main character were a hot topic before launch and have been ever since – naturally, there are a lot of mods, and those mods are doing really well.
Speaking to This Is Game (via translations from Automaton, Genki, and machine translation) Shiftup CEO and game director Hyung-Tae Kim talked about was asked about Stellar Blade being modded on PC, and for the most part the director was pretty positive, saying that ShiftUP has no policy about mods, and doesn't intend to go after modders. Both Kim and technical director Dong-Gi Lee warn about mods that can cause the game to malfunction, however, recommending that players revert to the original game if they notice anything wrong.
And of course, the concept of sexualised mods was brought up. Kim says that since Stellar Blade is a game made for adults, and rated as such, there is no reason to go after those mods either (he also mentions that even if ShiftUp does, modders would get these mods out to people regardless). He says that he believes the player base will steer clear of sensitive or anti-social mods. In fact, Kim's main worry is that players will create these mods and sell them at high prices.
However, while Kim doesn't object to the litany of nude mods or minor gameplay tweaks, he said at the moment, the firepower of modders is "weak" and that he believes the official content in Stellar Blade is better. He said ShiftUp is looking forward to mods that change the way players can enjoy the game, and that while new costumes are cool and all, mods that "expand the user's play experience" would be welcome, although he admits that's tough to do without official modding tools. Hopefully, once the scene gets all of that out of their system, we will see meaningful expansions to the gameplay, maybe something that makes aerial combat not totally useless?
There is a Stellar Blade sequel on the way too, with a release before 2027 apparently in the cards. And I'm sure that get a ton of mods of its own.
