author: Michal Harat
„When I Initially Decided to Create This Game, Many People Felt We Were Out of Our Mind.” Stellar Blade Action RPG Dev Promises Remarkable Story
The developers of the action RPG Stellar Blade gave a closer look at the details of the game's development. When they began work on it, many people accused them of being crazy. The reason was said to be the market situation in South Korea.
Today, the official PlayStation YouTube channel released a behind-the-scenes video showing the work on Stellar Blade. The director of the game, Kim Hyung-Tae, provided a handful of interesting information about the sources of his inspiration and the issues addressed in the plot. Other members of the Shift Up studio also shared their thoughts - you can watch the video below, I guarantee it's worth it.
Developing a AAA game in a country of mobile games is risky
The director of Stellar Blade noted that his idea for the game carried significant risk. In South Korea, the gaming industry is dominated by smartphones, and the console market "almost doesn't exist." That's why it was simply insane to decide to develop a large action RPG and release it on PS5. As he himself says:
When I initially decided to create this game, many people felt we were out of our mind, because in South Korea, mobile gaming dominates the market [...]. These days, getting to work on a AAA game in Korea is quite a rare feat, to be honest.
Kim Hyuang-Tae is apparently a person who simply likes to go against the grain. His statements about the market needing single-player games that can be "completed" are significant. It was also him, and not Sony, who contributed to the release of the Stellar Blade demo (let us add that it is extremely popular) - which is an increasingly common practice today, but rather among the developers of indie games. That's why the director's inclination towards risk should come as no surprise, he just acts on what he deeply believes in.
Stellar Blade was inspired by the strike
Players anticipating Stellar Blade may be surprised to learn that the game was inspired by taxi driver strikes. When Kim Hyuang-Tae saw the message about this, it dawned on him that their work would soon be replaced by AI.
So the developer asked himself - "what if this happened to me?" "If humans can be completely replaced, what does this mean?" The idea for Stellar Blade was born out of the curiosity behind these questions.
In short - the game is to tell the story of a warrior fighting enemies called "Naytiba," who "suddenly appeared on Earth" and forced people to leave their home planet. If you delve deeper into it, that actually sounds like (obviously exaggerated, but still) an allegory related to people's position towards rapidly developing AI. As the dev points out:
At a later stage of the game, it may turn out that this is a story about humanity [...]. This project started with one question: "What is humanity?" "Is humanity something that can be lost?" Or "Can it be replaced?" I'm excited to see how players feel about that.
The game is only 30 GB in size
According to the latest PlayStation GameSize reports, it turns out that Stellar Blade on PS5 will take 30,448 GB, and the preload will start on April 19 (as a reminder - the premiere will take place on April 26, and the review embargo will end two days earlier). Meanwhile, you can still test the game demo.
