Shift Up CEO Says He Was “Following His Instincts” When Designing Sexy Characters For ‘Stellar Blade’ And ‘Goddess Of Victory: Nikke’: “It’s Something That Users Like And Want, But I Also Do It Because I Like It”
According to Shift Up CEO Hyung-tae Kim, the reason both of his studio’s biggest hits, Goddess of Victory: Nikke and Stellar Blade, feature an abundance of ‘sexy female characters’ is, simply put, that’s just what he – and his audience – wants to see on the screen.
Kim, who in addition to his role overseeing the company also served as a lead character artist on both titles, offered this insight into his ‘titillating’ design philosophy during an interview given to the Japanese news outlet GAME Watch at the recent 2024 Tokyo Game Show, as machine translated by DeepL.
At the onset of their time together, Kim was immediately pressed on the topic of Shift Up’s penchant for developing games with attractive female cast members, with the outlet inquiring as to whether or not Nikke was intended from the outset to be “a game that draws the eye to the attractive backsides of the characters” (For those unaware, the popular mobile title tasks players with helping a given female character use various firearms to win against waves of enemy, all from a ‘cover position’ which highlights said character’s rear assets).
In turn, the Shift Up head explained, “Nikke is based on a game project that was selected in a game planning competition held for in-house staff. However, at the time, the characters were not the main focus of the game.”
“I directed the direction that it would be better to show the shooting figure on the character’s back or in front of the character, and this is how we changed the direction,” he further detailed. “After that, the development staff’s efforts and hard work led to the creation of Nikke as we know it today.”
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On the subject of Nikke, Kim was then asked how exactly he approached designing the game’s cast, to which he admitted, “What I consider most important when designing characters is to make sure that the narrative is firmly linked to the game’s story.”
“All of the design elements that make up the character must be combined in a setting that fits the story well,” he continued. “It is also important that the look of the character is not only cute, but also that the character’s personality is expressed well in the right situation. Therefore, I think that visually appealing is a close second. Nevertheless, an attractive appearance is still important, so the creator’s skill is tested in the pursuit of these two elements at the same time.”
From there, Game WATCH noted that in both Nikke and Stellar Blade, there were “a lot of characters whose body lines are clearly visible” (such as Alice in the former and protagonist Eve in the latter), and as such raised the question of whether or not this was a design element that Kim was “particular” about.
However, rather than any sort of ‘concerted effort to make sexy characters’, the Shift UP CEO instead admitted that when it came to both games featuring attractive casts, “I don’t think it’s something that we consciously set out to do, but I also do it because I like it, so I think it’s the result that came out naturally when I followed my instincts.”
Putting a stamp on this portion of the interview, Kim concluded his reflection with the anecdotal note that “Incidentally, in the case of Nikke, the percentage of female creators is high.”
“Despite this, the fact that such design is so important to me means that, if anything, the staff has already been imbued with my DNA,” he playfully joked. “I am happy and satisfied with it in the shadows.”
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