By now, we all know that Stellar Blade, despite making a few players skeptical with its reveal trailers, turned out to be a banger. Full of fantastic combat, amazing boss fights, and the best dress-up simulator on the side, it was one of the best games in 2024, and it even got a few nominations for The Game Awards. The studio behind it, Shift Up, decided to reward its employees with a PS5 Pro and 5 million won, which is roughly 3.4k USD, as an end-of-year bonus.
Shift Up Employees Get a PS5 Pro and 3.4K USD as a Bonus
The official Stellar Blade X (formerly known as Twitter) account shows the studio gifting its employees a PS5 Pro. The South Korean Naver website also mentions the employees will receive five million won, which is around 3,400 USD. One of the studio’s officials mentioned the following:
“The plus and bonus payments are for the purpose of encouraging talent.”
Shift Up via Choi Woo-young/Naver
Nowadays, it is strange to see video game companies giving these sorts of bonuses to their employees. Plus, a PS5 Pro is no small gift, so props to Shift Up for giving one to each of the talents that worked on Stellar Blade.
While Stellar Blade is on its way to reaching the one-year mark, it’s still getting new updates to bring players back. One of the biggest ones was its crossover with NieR: Automata, and then it got a free update with holiday outfits. A couple of weeks later, we got a teaser for a Nikke and Stellar Blade collaboration, but it’s still uncertain what will come with it. Still, it is nice to see Eve relevant even after the game’s release.
Hopefully, this won’t be the last we’ll see from Stellar Blade. Shift Up hit the nail with everything in its latest game, including a terrific soundtrack, gorgeous visuals, and engaging combat. We can only hope that the formula will continue in other future endeavors that Shift Up decides to pursue.
