Though Stellar Blade director Hyung-tae Kim doesn’t develop fighting games, he has a lot of love for the genre, and has previously cited Tekken as one of his big inspirations. Following the resurfacing of an old image on social media, Kim and Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada recounted one of their earliest meetings and reflected on how far they have come since then.
The image in question was taken at the Inven Game Conference on October 2015 in South Korea, during which Harada gave a speech on how to create realistic VR games and Kim talked about how he started Shift Up.. This would be two years after Shift Up was founded, and around the time of Tekken 7’s arcade release.
Harada recalls how Kim expressed his love for the Tekken games, as evidenced by the young developer mimicking a classic Tekken “fighting” pose alongside him. Harada and Kim’s most recent meeting appears to have been at the Game Awards 2024, where the former was glad to see how much the latter has evolved into a “very calm and refined gentleman.” Given the number of games Shift Up has developed since 2015, and the great success of Stellar Blade, which received two nominations for Best Score and Music and Best Action Game at the Game Awards 2024, it comes as no surprise that Harada is also a fan of Kim’s work.
Kim thanked Harada for remembering him after all those years. Likely in jest, Kim revealed that he is secretly training in order to be featured in the Tekken franchise. While Harada has made several appearances in Tekken games, the chances of Kim becoming a guest fighter seem unlikely. In the event of his rejection, Kim hopes that Harada will consider adding Stellar Blade protagonist EVE instead.
