Korean studio Shift Up’s action-adventure game Stellar Blade is considering a PC launch in 2025, the developer said in its latest financial earnings report on Tuesday. The game was released exclusively on PS5 in April and has sold more than 1 million copies as of June. Shift Up also reported third-quarter operating profit of KRW 36 billion (roughly Rs. 216 crore), even as Stellar Blade sales fell from the previous quarter.
Stellar Blade PC launching in 2025
Shift Up reiterated Stellar Blade’s platform expansion plans and said it expects the game to perform better commercially on PC. During the Q&A portion of its fiscal 2024 third-quarter earnings call, the company said it was considering launching a Stellar Blade PC in 2025.
“Considering a release in 2025. Considering recent trends such as Steam’s growing market share in AAA games and the global success of Black Myth: Wukong, we expect performance on PC to exceed that on consoles,” the studio said.
The company also provided an update on its first game and said it plans to maintain the IP’s popularity ahead of its PC launch. Shift Up said: “Sales have remained at a stable level throughout the third quarter since its release as a PS5 exclusive in April. To increase the value of the IP and maintain momentum, we have been continuously releasing content patches and updates, which has helped maintain the popularity of the game.” “With the addition of NieR: Automata DLC and continued marketing activities, we plan to maintain the popularity of the IP ahead of platform expansion.”
Earlier this week, the developer announced that a new update for Stellar Blade will be rolling out later this month, which will include special items for NieR: Automata and the much-anticipated photo mode.
The update will also add new costumes, lip-sync support for more languages, and minor gameplay features. PS5 users will get the update on November 20th.
Back in June, Shift Up confirmed that the game had sold over 1 million copies on PS5. The studio also revealed that it is reviewing plans for a PC port of Stellar Blade. “It was released as a PS5 exclusive version, but the number of releases and activation levels on PS5 are not as high as those on PS4,” Shift Up CFO Ahn Jae-woo reportedly said at the time. “Recently, the main consumers of AAA games have shifted to PC. We are currently reviewing the PC version of Star Blade, and if we launch a PC version, we expect the value of the IP to increase again.”
Stellar Blade launches exclusively on PS5 on April 26. The game tells the story of Eve, a super soldier who is sent to save the Earth from being overrun by monsters. In our review of the game, we praised its “fun combat and smooth presentation” but said it was “consistently held back by almost every other factor.”
