‘Stellar Blade’ Director Rejects Microtransactions, Promises Game “Will Not Require Players To Spend Any Additional Money Beyond What They Paid For The Package”
Spencer Baculi
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In continuing his seeming use of the Western video game industry’s recent failures as a guide as to what to avoid with his upcoming title, Shift Up CEO and Stellar Blade director Hyung-Tae Kim has promised that, outside of one very specific and possible instance, the upcoming action title will feature absolutely zero microtransactions.
Kim made this promise to players while speaking on the game’s future during a recent interview (as machine translated by DeepL) with Korean video game news outlet RuliWeb.
At one point during his time with the outlet, his unnamed interviewer broached the topic of how “Today’s console titles do not end with release [as] in addition to content updates, including DLC releases, [developers] also provide balance patches if necessary.”
In turn, Kim affirmed, “Of course, if we accidentally miss something or are lacking something, we will fix it after launch.”
“We’ll also be working on balance patches to make the game more enjoyable for those who started early so that those who come in later don’t experience any inconvenience,” he added. “We’re not sure if we’ll be releasing DLC, but we’re working on free updates like additional outfits.”
To this end, the game director declared to the public, “We want to make it clear at this point that Stellar Blade will not require players to spend any additional money beyond what they paid for the package.”
Unfortunately, albeit understandably, Kim then proceeded to note that despite his best intentions, there did exist one such situation where the Shift Up team would be required to charge for DLC: crossover costumes with other established franchises.
“The only exception to this is if we create collaborative outfits with third-party IPs, those may be sold for a fee,” clarified the producer. “Also, there’s no New Game+ in the launch version, but stay tuned for that very soon.”
(As an aside, given both this suggestion and the ‘appealing’ nature of both titles’ protagonists, one wonders if Stellar Blade‘s Eve could soon find herself donning the frilled, black dress of NieR: Automata protagonist 2B.)
Finally, Kim expanded his attentions from the game’s content roadmap to the IP’s overall future.
Asked by Ruliweb whether Shift Up would continue to produce single-player titles with definitive endings, especially in the face of rising development costs across the industry, Kim opined, “It’s a very acute issue because of the rising development costs in recent years. Honestly, I get a lot of advice from people that I should make games with higher operating margins. But I think what our industry needs more than anything is diversity [of titles].”
“Console titles, single-player games with endings, are very important in their own right,” he explained. “It’s healthier for the market to continue to make these games and for them to coexist with other genres and platforms, which is why ShiftUp will continue to take on the console challenge. We have a strong desire to continue to make games that make the average gamer see the ending and return to reality feeling good.”
At current, Stellar Blade is set to twirl, jump, and slash its way exclusively onto PlayStation 5 consoles on April 26th.
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