Shift Up CEO Kim Hyung Tae has attempted to address fan criticism surrounding a music video for the upcoming Stellar Blade sequel, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, which heavily features generative AI. The video, described by fans as "slop," has drawn ire from the game's community, and the CEO's defense has only intensified the negative reception.
Kim Hyung Tae stated on X that the character Evie in the video was "created from head to toe by our talented artists and modelers through more than a year of dedicated work," asserting that AI "is not creating her from scratch" but rather rendering and presenting the character based on the team's data and designs. This explanation has prompted further questions about the video's production, including the extent to which it relied on existing human-made assets and whether the AI tools were trained on other artists' work without consent.
Fans have expressed disappointment, with one commenting that "This brazen ideological support of AI to the point of risking your reputation is mind-boggling when one drawing from you would have a bigger worldwide reach than any AI video through sheer skill." Another user lamented the perceived "tarnishing" of over a year of character development with "Grok make my character dance' type of schlock."
Further criticism has focused on the quality and consistency of the character model in the AI-generated video. "It does not look like her a lot of the times, even if the [AI] might use the base model as part of the input," one fan observed. Concerns were raised about the character's appearance and costume shifting between shots, with another user noting that "LLMs are evolving but they’re not there yet" to produce a polished result.
This controversy marks the first time Shift Up has faced significant backlash since the launch of Stellar Blade, a game that cultivated a passionate fanbase. Kim Hyung Tae has previously advocated for generative AI as a tool for smaller studios to compete with larger ones, citing differences in development capacity between his studio and Chinese competitors. He suggested that "One person can perform the work of 100 people" with AI, a sentiment that now appears to have alienated a portion of his player base.