IT·Science
Entered 2024.04.26 20:00 Modified 2024.04.26 20:00
Joint interview… “Work that questions what humanity is in the age of AI.” “When I started developing ‘Stella Blade,’ I was told, ‘If you make Lineage Like (a game similar to Lineage), you can easily make 100 billion. gain a year, so why make that choice?’ But the times “The works that were changed were not always games that copied the existing ones.”
Kim Hyeong-tae, CEO and general director of Shift Up, creator of the highly anticipated Korean console game ‘Stella Blade’, said this in a joint interview held at IFC in Yeouido, Seoul on the 26th.
CEO Kim, a representative first-generation original game artist in Korea, served as art director at NCSoft and made a name for himself as a renowned game developer by overseeing the overall art style and character design of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) ‘Blade & Soul’ released in 2012.
After that, he founded Shift Up in 2014 and raised it to the ranks of unicorn companies (corporate value KRW 1 trillion) with mobile games ‘Destiny Child’ and ‘Goddess of Victory: Nike’, which used his unique artistic style. ‘Stella Blade’, which Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) released simultaneously worldwide on the PlayStation 5 platform this morning (Korea time), was widely played in major countries including Korea, the United States, Japan, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France immediately after its release. At the press conference on this day, questions were asked about why Shift Up decided to pursue a single-player console game rather than a mobile MMORPG, which is the mainstream genre in the Korean market.
CEO Kim said, “I think the game market, users and developers all need to re-examine what we enjoy doing,” and urged, “We will work hard to prove that, so let’s create a game that can be used in the global market together.” “If bananas only exist as one Cavendish species, they will be destroyed by an epidemic.
“If (the Korean game industry) only makes mobile MMORPGs, such a moment will come,” he said, adding, “I hope game developers will also help so that a variety of games.”
When asked what kind of government support is needed to promote console games, he said, “Games are a cultural product, so creative freedom is important.” “There is a tendency to be presumptuous and deliberate, and we have to give people freedom so that they don’t self-censor,” he said. As this was my first 3D console game, there were many difficulties during the production process .
Technical Director Lee Dong-gi said, “The production team has a lot of knowledge, but this was their first time developing a console,” and added, “By collaborating with Sony, we were able to improve the quality of the game.
Also, since it’s an action game where the frame rate (screen refresh rate) is important, we spent a lot of time optimizing it.”
Artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, which are hot topics around the world these days, feature as important subjects in ‘Stella Blade’.
CEO Kim said, “With the development of generative AI, many parts of humans are being replaced, and sometimes the work one has built becomes meaningless,” adding, “AI replaces even seemingly irreplaceable elements a game that asks what will happen to us when the definition is redefined and what choices you will make,” he explained.
Regarding the multi-ended structure chosen by ‘Stella Blade’, he said, “I wanted to allow users to make that choice.
“I believe that whatever choice is made, it will be accepted as true history,” he also said.
Regarding XL Games CEO Song Jae-kyung, who was involved in the early development of ‘The Kingdom of the Winds’ and ‘Lineage’, appearing in a cameo in ‘Stella Blade’, CEO Kim said, ” He is an outstanding developer who left a big mark on the domestic games industry,” and added, “We communicate a lot on a regular basis.” “But when he came to our company, he asked, ‘Can I scan it and put it in the game?’ and he readily agreed.”
Also, regarding the meeting with ‘Nier Automata’ director Yoko Taro (橫尾太郞) and action game master Hideo Kojima (小島秀夫), “I was influenced by Nier Automata, so I thought the it would be polite to meet the original author and speak to him in person.” He said, “I only spoke briefly about producing a game with Director Kojima, but I hope we can have a more in-depth conversation next time.”
There was no specific mention of plans to release the next Stella Blade game or DLC (downloadable content).
Director Lee Dong-gi said, “With the patch on the day of release, the New Game + mode, which allows you to play by inheriting progress after the end, has been updated, and other facilities have also been improved. We plan to add a boss challenge mode in the future.”
CEO Kim said, “For now, our goal is to focus on this title and make the game perfect by complementing what users want.” However, they expressed their strong will to continue with the same innovations shown in ‘Stellar Blade’ in the future.
CEO Kim said, “Shift Up’s DNA is a game company that sells things you might like without ‘pretending to be real’.”
He emphasized, “We have been evaluated by the global market on an equal basis with leading games. We will continue to make games and show that we are growing every time.”
/happy news
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