Updated

Updated · Yahoo · Aug 4

Shift Up Defends AI-Made Blood Rain Video as Stellar Blade Sequel Slips Toward 2030

Updated

Updated · Yahoo · Aug 4

Shift Up Defends AI-Made Blood Rain Video as Stellar Blade Sequel Slips Toward 2030

Q: Are secret, uncredited datasets powering Shift Up's new AI tools, or is the studio truly only using its own original art?

There is no public evidence yet that Shift Up’s AI tools were trained only on the studio’s own original art, and that is the core reason the backlash has not faded. Hyung-Tae Kim’s defense is narrower than many fans wanted. He said Evie was designed by Shift Up artists and modelers over more than a year, and that AI was used to render or present her movements rather than create the character from nothing. The music video itself was labeled as using game resources and being “regenerated with AI support,” which suggests some underlying assets came from Shift Up. But that does not answer the key provenance question: what data trained the generative system that transformed those assets. At present, Shift Up has not publicly disclosed the training dataset, the model source, or whether the AI system was built exclusively on internal assets. Without that, there is no way to verify whether the tool relied on outside, uncredited works, a third-party model trained on broad internet data, or a closed internal pipeline. So the most accurate answer is that the studio’s claim remains unproven. It is plausible that original Shift Up assets were used as inputs, but there is not enough transparency to confirm that the AI itself was trained only on those assets. Until Shift Up publishes details on model provenance, licensing, and human oversight, questions about secret or uncredited datasets will remain open.

3 articles · Updated · Yahoo · Aug 4

Shift Up is facing fan backlash after using generative AI in a music video for Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, the sequel it says remains in early development and may not arrive until 2030.
CEO Hyung-tae Kim argued the AI did not create protagonist Evie from scratch, saying it rendered work already designed by the studio’s artists and designers.
The criticism centers on the July 31 video’s AI-generated look, with players calling out uncanny facial expressions and visual errors despite Shift Up’s claim that Evie was hand-designed over more than a year.
Blood Rain was revealed in June 2026 as a follow-up to 2024 hit Stellar Blade, shifting the story to a cyberpunk city and introducing Evie as a more personality-driven lead.