Stellar Blade: Blood Rain developer Shift Up has sparked a backlash for releasing an entirely AI-generated music video starring protagonist Evie.
“Wanna be in LOVE” Feat. Evie | Stellar Blade: BLOODRAIN was published to South Korean developer Shift Up’s YouTube channel on July 31, as a K-pop twist on the upcoming action game. It shows Evie singing an upbeat pop song in Stellar Blade’s future setting.
But fans have pointed out a number of oddities in the video, including facial changes and visual inaccuracies, with some comparing it to the AI-generated adverts you often see before YouTube videos.
After the music video ends, we see a mock ‘making of’ segment where the Shift Up crew pretend to interact with Evie.
The video description confirms it was made with AI, and the small print at the end of the video includes the following description:
“This video was created using the game resource from Stellar Blade: Bloodrain and regenerated with AI support.”
The logo for Shift Up’s A.I. Labs department is at the bottom.
The reception not only on the YouTube video itself but across the internet is overwhelmingly negative. “They really thought they were cooking with this AI slop,” one person commented. “Deleting this from my memory, SGF trailer was amazing,” another said.
“Could’ve made an actual music video and paid the team another bonus check. Hopefully this was a one time thing and pray the game doesn’t have AI cutscenes,” one person wrote. “Your RAM just went up in prices while watching this video,” another said. “Since there’s no name for the singer in the description. I guess the song was made with AI as well?” pointed out another.
It’s a similar sentiment over on the Stellar Blade subreddit. “Such a f***ing shame man,” one redditor said. “I love almost everything about this company and its games, but the damn CEO’s obsession with AI is seriously bringing the whole thing down. You HAVE the talent and resources to make quality content. Despite all that, you decide to make slop like this. My hype for this game has been genuinely damaged with this s**t.”
That’s a reference to Shift Up boss Kim Hyung-Tae, who is a vocal proponent of generative AI. In January, he said that without the use of AI, developers in smaller nations would struggle to keep up with studios in places like the U.S. and China.
“We devote around 150 people to a single game, but China puts in between 1,000 to 2,000. We lack the capacity to compete, both in terms of quality and volume of content,” Hyung-Tae said (via machine translation).
Using AI would not result in job losses, Hyung-Tae insisted at the time, but instead make employees more valuable, as “one person can perform the work of 100 people.”
Hyung-Tae promoted the music video on X / Twitter, asking viewers to share their thoughts with the studio. He got his wish. “I think you guys have enough budget to animate a music video instead of using AI,” one person replied. It would be a good way to actually advertise the in-game assets instead of faking content.”
“This is an absolute shame and disgrace to art,” another replied. “You have one of the most INSANE budgets to develop your game without AI involved at 1%, but still, you produced this slop. And don’t throw at me the ‘we use AI to compete with US/China market,’ that’s a literal BS.”
“My thoughts are that this is s**t,” another declared. “Shame that you are using AI instead of paying artists to animate this. Is this type of thing going to be in the game too? Cause if that’s the case I don’t want it now.”
In June, Hyung-Tae discussed the design of new main character Evie, highlighting the differences between her and the protagonist of the first game, Eve. Shift Up announced Stellar Blade: Blood Rain at Summer Game Fest with an eye-catching trailer that revealed Evie, a brand new main character who prefers to punch her way through enemies than take the slice and dice approach favored by her predecessor.
The biggest talking point coming out of the trailer reveal was the design of Evie herself, with some expressing concern about her seemingly child-like face in the context of her more adult-sounding voice acting and body design.
In an interview with IGN following the Summer Game Fest reveal, Hyung-Tae confirmed that Evie being Eve’s junior was a conscious design decision. “Yes. She is younger. She’s smaller in size. She’s shorter than Eve,” he said, “but she has a stronger personality and engages in much tougher battles. And she’s actually part of a special squad that chases after a group of terrorists who cause terror attacks here and there in the city.”
Eve in Stellar Blade is a highly sexualized character, so we asked Hyung-Tae if he was worried that by using a young-looking character for Blood Rain, Shift Up was running the risk that some people would view Evie in a way the developer doesn’t want.
“If you actually play the game, you will not think that,” he replied. “I definitely like how Eve looked in the previous Stellar Blade. But this time, Evie, not just her physical looks, but her personality, the way she talks, the way she engages in battles, all that will combine together, and you’ll see that she’s a very lovable character.”
Opinion on the use of AI in games continues to divide studios and their fans, with some vehemently against its use, while others claim it’s an inevitable part of the future. Rockstar co-founder and former Grand Theft Auto writer Dan Houser recently likened AI to mad cow disease, but the CEO of Genvid — the company behind choose-your-own-adventure interactive series like Silent Hill Ascension — has claimed “consumers generally do not care” about generative AI in games, and stated that: “Gen Z loves AI slop.”
EA CEO Andrew Wilson has said AI is “the very core of our business,” and Square Enix recently implemented mass layoffs and reorganized, saying it needed to be “aggressive in applying AI.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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