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Stellar Blade: Blood Rain lead and Shift Up CEO Hyung-Tae Kim echoes calls for hardware-accessible games as the studio continues work on its follow-up action game.
The Summer Game Fest reveal of Stellar Blade: Blood Rain comes at a volatile, pricey time for games. Current-generation consoles have gotten more expensive over time, sourcing components for a new PC will make your eyes water, and new hardware like Valve's Steam Machine has been pushed back due to part droughts.
Much of the pressure on hardware supply chains stems from a glut of AI data centers devouring components en masse, making gaming systems less affordable than ever. I've seen many developers warn that games must treat low-spec machines as a greater priority in the years ahead as players become more unable, or unwilling, to upgrade. If your game runs on a potato, it will have a massive advantage over others. It sounds like some of these concerns have made it to Shift Up.
Speaking with Inven Global, Kim examines how Blood Rain improves on the original Stellar Blade. "Density" is a focus for the game's massive-looking city, he says, as this was something "we couldn't fully achieve in the previous game." However, any advancements in art or design are being made with current system standards in mind, not "on the premise of rising hardware specs."
Kim neatly summarizes the increasingly fraught relationship between what cutting-edge games are theoretically capable of and what the average gaming rig can actually keep up with.
"I believe there is a limit to progress based on price, whether it's for PCs or consoles," he says. "Therefore, we are prioritizing making the game playable for users with current-generation consoles or current PCs. Since we still need to show differentiation, I believe it's important to focus on the density of certain linear areas and the charm of the various cities."
Shift Up demonstrably understands optimization. Stellar Blade received an absolutely dreamy PC port after a short stint as a PS5 exclusive. The minimum specs – an Intel i5-7600k or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X with an Nvidia GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580 – were approachable, but beefy PCs could also tap into lavish, optional graphical effects that blew the PS5 version out of the water.
Stellar Blade was released in 2024 and ported to PC in 2025. Blood Rain is only one year into active development, suggesting it may arrive in 2028 at the earliest (that 2027 window looks very unlikely for now). There's no telling what the newest gaming hardware will look like in two years given the unstable market, with platform holders Xbox and PlayStation likely to delay their new-gen systems until prices stabilize, but I do know that any game with performance matching Stellar Blade's would be received well.
