Shift Up CEO Responds to Fan Criticism of Stellar Blade’s Blood Rain Video Amid Ongoing Backlash

Kim Hyung Tae, a veteran artist in the gaming industry, has faced backlash from fans over his recent embrace of generative AI. The CEO of Shift Up shared a music video featuring Evie, the protagonist of the upcoming sequel, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, but many fans have criticized it harshly. Despite his efforts to clarify and defend the project, the negative reactions persist.

“EVIE, the character at the heart of this video, was created from head to toe by our talented artists and modelers through more than a year of dedicated work,” Kim Hyung Tae stated on social media. “The AI is not creating her from scratch. It is rendering and presenting the character based on the data, designs, and craftsmanship our team created. We would truly appreciate it if you could view the work with that understanding in mind.”

This explanation has sparked further questions about the video’s creation. Did it solely utilize existing, human-made art and footage from the game for rendering? Were the AI tools trained on databases filled with other creators’ work? How many people contributed to the music video compared to those who worked on the original designs?

One fan pointed out that Bayonetta managed to achieve similar results 16 years ago without AI, using in-game models and a much smaller budget.

“Kim Hyung Tae used to be one of the most influential artists of our generation,” another fan remarked. “This blatant support of AI, risking your reputation, is baffling when *one* drawing from you would have a bigger worldwide reach than any AI video through sheer skill.” Another added, “That’s exactly the problem! Evie was created with love and care, so she deserves that same attention afterward! Instead of tarnishing all that year-plus of work with this ‘Grok make my character dance’ type of schlock. This is getting depressing.”

Fans also noted discrepancies between the video version of Evie and her earlier trailer appearance. “It does not look like her a lot of the time, even if the [AI] might use the base model as part of the input,” one user commented. “You’re diminishing the quality of your own work, the brand, the studio, and Evie as a character.” Even those who are generally okay with generative AI expressed concerns about the quality in this case. “The reception would have been positive if it looked great,” one user stated. “Instead, her costume shifts from shot to shot, as does her appearance. LLMs are evolving, but they’re not there yet.”

Critics have not held back, with one remarking on the lack of effort in the AI-generated video, saying, “It looks like zero effort garbage because that’s all it is. Take the hint.”

This marks the first time Shift Up has found itself on the defensive since the launch of Stellar Blade. The sci-fi action game had previously garnered a passionate fanbase that speculated about potential censorship and expressed frustration over the absence of Game of the Year nominations. This intense loyalty to the studio and its new franchise, particularly its female leads, is now turning against the CEO for understandable reasons.

While there’s no current evidence that AI will be used in the development of Stellar Blade: Blood Rain itself, Kim Hyung Tae has been vocal about promoting this controversial technology as a means for smaller studios to compete with larger ones. “We devote around 150 people to a single game, but China puts in between 1,000 to 2,000,” he noted earlier this year. “We lack the capacity to compete, both in terms of quality and volume of content.”

“One person can perform the work of 100 people,” he added. However, AI can also quickly erode the goodwill of an entire fanbase.