Revision 1

Marketing for Stellar Blade: BLOOD RAIN has been sparse and front-loaded. SHIFT UP revealed the game at Summer Game Fest 2026 and has released only a handful of pieces since, all of them through its own channels rather than a storefront campaign. The game has no store page on any platform, so everything published so far is a video or a press statement.

Reveal at Summer Game Fest 2026

The game was announced on 5 June 2026 (US local time) during Summer Game Fest 2026, where SHIFT UP showed the official title and a debut trailer for the first time. In its own announcement the studio described the trailer as three minutes and thirty seconds built from actual in-game footage rather than a pre-rendered cinematic, and the trailer's own notes add that it was captured entirely in-game on PC from a build still in development and subject to change. That last line is a note about how the footage was captured; it is not a platform announcement. See Development for the production context and Differences From Stellar Blade for how the reveal was positioned against the first game.

Alongside the trailer SHIFT UP published key art and a set of gameplay screenshots. The studio also confirmed in the same announcement that it is handling publishing directly and that platforms and a release schedule would be disclosed later.

Published Promotional Material

Everything SHIFT UP has released for the game to date, in order:

"Wanna be in LOVE"

On 30 July 2026 SHIFT UP published a music video for an original song titled "Wanna be in LOVE", credited as featuring Evie. It runs about three and a half minutes and casts her as a pop performer, singing and moving through the dense city the game is set in before shifting into staged behind-the-scenes footage. It is the first time the character has appeared in musical content, and it is the only substantial promotional piece released since the reveal aside from the two trailer tracks.

The video carries a generative-AI disclosure. Its "How this was made" panel states that it was made with AI and that sounds or visuals were altered or fully generated. SHIFT UP has not published a breakdown of which specific elements were AI-generated, and has not said whether such tools will be used in the finished game.

Reception and the Studio's Response

The video drew heavy criticism. Viewers and community discussion focused on the use of generative AI, with complaints centring on the vocal performance and on facial animation that many found unconvincing. It became the most-watched piece of BLOOD RAIN material by view count while also becoming the most negatively received.

General Director Kim Hyung-tae responded publicly on his personal account rather than through a studio statement. He argued that the character herself was not machine-generated:

EVIE, the character at the heart of this video, was created from head to toe by our talented artists and modelers through more than a year of dedicated work. The AI is not creating her from scratch. It is rendering and presenting the character based on the data, designs, and craftsmanship our team created.

The reply did not address which parts of the video were generated, and the studio has issued no fuller explanation since. The video remains published. Kim has previously spoken favourably about using AI tools in development, which is the context most of the criticism was framed against.

What Has Not Been Marketed

There is no store page for the game on any platform, no pre-order, no edition list and no pricing. No ratings board has rated it. A hands-off demo running roughly twenty minutes was shown to press behind closed doors around the reveal, but no playable build has been offered publicly, and Kim said there were no plans to bring one to other 2026 showcases, adding that the studio would show more once it had something worth showing. Platforms and a release date remain unannounced; see Development for the studio's statements on both.