Stellar Blade’s director Kim Hyung Tae admitted that the game fell short in narrative, attributing this to development costs and the limited talent pool in Korea familiar with story-heavy games. He mentioned that while the core gameplay was ready early on, crafting the narrative experienced hurdles, particularly with the creation of cutscenes.

“In an action game with a narrative, cutscenes play a very important role in storytelling. It’s hard to tell all the narrative through action alone, so you have to take the [story] through cutscenes, and initially we had a lot of setup and a lot of things we wanted to do in cutscenes.”
“在一款带有叙事的动作游戏中，插曲在讲故事方面扮演着非常重要的角色。仅通过行动很难传达所有叙事，因此您必须通过插曲来讲述故事，最初我们有很多设置和许多我们想要在插曲中实现的事情。”

Unfortunately, many plot elements were cut due to financial constraints, including a storyline explaining Eve’s many outfits. Despite the setbacks, Kim expressed his desire to enrich the narrative for potential sequels, stating, “I’m cautious about trying to make up for it now because it might conflict with the story that users have already accepted. However, if we are given the opportunity to make the next one, I think we will be able to present it with a rich enough narrative.”

The challenges encountered by Shift Up in narrative development reflect a broader issue in the current gaming landscape.