That was a pretty fast announcement coming immediately after the release of Stellar Blade. I haven't played the game betind the demo but it seems cool, and I'm curious about this Project Witches game. 2027 seems like a pretty quick release for a modern AAA game too, where it's common to see development times of 5+ years or longer.With the release of the chart-topping Stellar Blade last month, developer Shift Up has already had a massive year. Now, its next game is officially in development, with the studio also reportedly considering new options for the future of Stellar Blade.
Today, in its securities filing (according to an article originally published on Yonhap News Agency and translated by Genki on Twitter/X), Shift Up announced the development of its next game, an “AAA urban sci-fi action RPG” codenamed Project Witches.
While Shift Up hasn’t revealed many details about Project Witches, the game’s hiring page does mention that it’ll be cross platform and next-gen. Project Witches is slated for release in 2027.
The company also mentioned that it is considering development of a sequel to Stellar Blade as well as a PC port — currently, Stellar Blade is a PlayStation 5 exclusive — although neither has been confirmed.
Along with a new focus on these IPs, Shift Up also plans to grow its workforce beginning in 2025 and “scale up development of new projects” alongside building a new office.
We gave Stellar Blade a 7 in our review, calling it “a gorgeous and well-crafted action game with very impressive strengths and very clear weaknesses.” It hasn’t been free from controversy, though — a day one patch had to remove art that referenced racist language, and an executive at EA Japan criticized the Japanese video game ratings board for allowing the game’s uncensored release.
I'm noticing this pretty much confirms next-gen consoles will be released by 2027, which matches up with other rumors and industry comments. Also, IGN's claim about "racist language" is pretty random to be inserted into this article, it's clear they just want to get their unrelated shots in at Stellar Blade, and their comment regarding EA is misleading.
Anyway, I think that PC release is actually a guarantee. Stellar Blade started off as a PC game and Sony has been releasing most of their published games on PC recently and plans to continue to.