South Korea’s SHIFT UP might have already been familiar to those keen on the mobile game space, but it’s beginning to build a new audience with the upcoming release of its single-player AAA action title, Stellar Blade, exclusively on PS5 later this month. Before that game has even launched though, it seems SHIFT UP is beginning to spin up its next project and has started advertising for new talent to work on what appears to be a big-budget, multi-platform action RPG.
The “New Project” recruitment page advertises for multiple positions including technical artists, monster and character concept artists and screenwriters, and specifically calls out the work being for a “AAA-level urban sci-fi action RPG” that’ll involve development based on Unreal Engine across PC, console and mobile (via Google machine translation).
??Shift-Up teases a *NEW PROJECT* (unnamed yet) on their website.?
??"Cross Platform Next-Gen Project"?? currently looking to hire talent in the art department, including a monster concept artist ?
What would you like this project turn out to be?? ? pic.twitter.com/afpQgHsXb7
— Stellar Blade/ #NIKKE /Destiny Child/ ? + ? = ? (@ShiftUpWorld) April 2, 2024
Digging even deeper, some of the art-facing descriptions ask for things like experience in creating monsters/creatures that also involves mechanical designs, as well as artists familiar with concepting in an animation/toon style and “stylish action.” In the description of the screenwriter role, the studio is seemingly asking for applicants with experience writing characters in “multi-hero” scenarios and “various subcultures.”
There are a huge number of theories that could be drawn from the above, including the potential for a combination of the work the studio has done with its upcoming AAA console effort as well as its very horny mobile “gacha” style game, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, akin to something like Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail.
Stellar Blade launches very soon on April 26th, exclusively for PS5. You can download a free demo right now on the PlayStation Store, and you can pre-order the game on Amazon at a discounted price of $109 with free release day delivery.
In our early impressions of the game’s demo, we said, “Stellar Blade definitely feels like an amalgamation of everything that’s trendy in a modern action game. That’s not inherently a bad thing though, and the way that it’s all put together here and tweaked to feel fresh seems like a genuine success.”
