Shift Up Says Its Considering Launching Stellar Blade on PC in 2025
Stellar Blade, the action-adventure title from Korean studio Shift Up, is being considered for a PC launch in 2025, the developer said in its latest financial earnings report on Tuesday. The game launched exclusively on PS5 in April and sold over a million copies as of June. Shift Up also reported an operating profit of KRW 36 billion (roughly Rs. 216 crore) in the third quarter, even as Stellar Blade sales declined compared to the previous quarter.
Stellar Blade PC Launch in 2025
Shift Up reiterated its plans for platform expansion of Stellar Blade and said that it expected the game to perform better commercially on PC. In the Q&A section for its Q3 FY 2024 earnings call, the company said it was considering a 2025 PC launch for Stellar Blade.
“The release is being considered within 2025. Considering recent trends such as Steam’s expanding market share in the AAA game sector and the global success of Black Myth: Wukong, we expect the performance on PC to exceed that on consoles,” the studio said.
The company also provided an update on its debut game and said it planned to maintain the popularity of the IP until its PC launch. “After its release as a PS5 exclusive title in April, sales continued at a stabilized level through the 3Q. To enhance the IP value and maintain momentum, we have been consistently releasing content patches and updates, which has helped sustain the game’s popularity,” Shift Up said. “With the addition of the Nier: Automata DLC and ongoing marketing activities, we plan to maintain the IP’s popularity until the platform expansion.”
Earlier this week, the developer announced it would roll out a new update for Stellar Blade later this month, which would include special items from Nier: Automata and a much-requested photo mode.
The update is also set to add new costumes, lip-sync support for more languages and minor gameplay features. PS5 users will get the update on November 20.
Back in June, Shift Up confirmed that the game had sold over one million copies on PS5. The studio also revealed it was reviewing plans for a PC port of Stellar Blade. “It was released as a PS5 exclusive, but the number of PS5 distributions and activation levels were not as high as that of PS4,” Shift Up CFO Ahn Jae-woo had reportedly said at the time. “And recently, the main consumer of AAA games has shifted to PCs. We are currently reviewing the PC version of Stellar Blade, and if we release the PC version, we expect the value of the IP to increase once more.”
Stellar Blade launched exclusively on PS5 on April 26. The game follows the story of Eve, a super soldier sent to rescue planet Earth that has been overrun with monsters. In our review of the game, we praised its “fun combat and slick presentation,” but said that it was “consistently held back by almost everything else.”
