Stellar Blade developer Shift Up to hire over 100 new staff for upcoming Project Witches
In their business performance results presentation for the fourth quarter, Shift Up revealed some more info about their in-development game, codenamed Project Witches, as well as Stellar Blade’s upcoming PC port.
Project Witches
Project Witches is the Goddess of Victory: NIKKE and Stellar Blade developer’s in-progress AAA game based on a new IP, set to be released in 2027. Although it was announced 8 months ago, little has been revealed about it so far. However, this is set to change soon. According to the South Korean game developer’s latest results presentation published on February 10, we will be getting more information about the title sometime in the first half of 2025.
In addition, Shift Up revealed that they are currently hiring new people to work on Project Witches. As of the end of December 2024, the Shift Up had 322 employees in total, of which 90% are game developers. They expect to expand their workforce up to around 400 to 420 people, with most of these staff set to work on Project Witches. “We will continue to recruit and nurture talented developers,” the company adds.
Stellar Blade PC release
As for Stellar Blade’s upcoming PC release, Shift Up expects it to sell more copies than it did on PS5, on account of the larger size of the PC market and the growing popularity of single player action games in the Asian market. However, PC ports are not always a success. Shift Up say that they have been analyzing both successful and unsuccessful PC ports of console games to ensure that Stellar Blade’s momentum will continue on PC. Players can expect optimization, Steam Deck compatibility and bonus content.
Since its release in April 2024 for PS5, Stellar Blade has received critical acclaim, with Shift Up announcing that it has “successfully established itself as a (sic) AAA IP in the market” and has “steadily built a strong global fandom.” According to Shift Up’s latest figures, Stellar Blade generated 62,795 million South Korean Won (approx. $43 million USD) in revenue in the 2024 financial year. This has been aided by updates to the base game, including a playerbase-boosting Summer update and the NieR Automata collaboration, with more extra content planned for 2025.
Project Witches is scheduled to be released sometime in 2027.
Stellar Blade is currently available on PS5. It will be coming to PC (Steam) in 2025.
