Shift Up, the South Korean company behind PlayStation 5 exclusive action game Stellar Blade, has gifted all its staff a PlayStation 5 Pro as well as a cash bonus of 5 million won (around. $3,400).
As spotted by VGC, South Korean publication Naver reported that the eye-catching bonuses were designed to encourage the company’s staff. As of the third quarter of last year, 311 people were working at Shift Up.
Shift Up had an impressive 2024. The Sony Interactive Entertainment-published Stellar Blade launched exclusively on PS5 in April and sold more than one million copies in two months. IGN’s Stellar Blade review returned a 7/10. We said: “Stellar Blade is great in all of the most important ways for an action game, but dull characters, a lackluster story, and several frustrating elements of its RPG mechanics prevent it from soaring along with the best of the genre.” Since then, Shift Up has continued to update the game and even added crossover DLC with other video game franchises, most notably Nier: Automata.
In July, Shift Up raised 435 billion won (around. $320 million) in its first day of trade after an initial public offering. According to Bloomberg, that was the largest in the country for a gaming company since 2021, when PUBG maker Krafton Inc. raised $3.8 billion from its own IPO.
In a recent financial report, Shift Up said that after Stellar Blade’s launch “sales continued at a stabilized level,” although it failed to provide an updated sales figure. It did, however, provide revenue directly attributed to the game: 25.8 billion won (approx. $18.5 million) during the quarter Stellar Blade came out (April to June), and 22.5 billion won (approx. $16.1 million) during the company’s third quarter (July to September). That’s a total of 48.4 billion won (around $34.6 million) as of the end of September. For context, Shift Up’s other game, mobile action RPG Goddess of Victory: Nikke, makes more money than Stellar Blade (approx. $51.9 million during the same two quarters).
There’s more to come, too. The developer has confirmed plans to release Stellar Blade on PC in 2025, and pointed to Black Myth: Wukong’s incredible success on Steam in predicting more sales on PC than on PS5.
Shift Up has an unannounced multiplatform game codenamed Project Witches, which it plans to launch after 2027. Given the success of Stellar Blade, it seems likely Shift Up is also considering a sequel.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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