Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, Shift Up’s sequel to 2024’s Stellar Blade, was officially announced during the Summer Game Fest last night. It’s far and away one of the most popular reveals of the non-E3 season so far, though some folks online have already started accusing its publishers of using AI for certain elements in the sequel’s debut footage.
For instance, several users on X have pointed out that the Chinese characters featured throughout the trailer are “very visibly AI slop,” and claimed some of the symbols featured throughout Stellar Blade: Blood Rain’s world aren’t even real.
Nice AI-assisted trailer, maybe heavily assisted but polished afterwards. pic.twitter.com/4OlMD3sfVy
— BX (@BxRockShooter) June 6, 2026
Others have pointed out that some of the buildings in the backgrounds of certain clips look a little nonsensical. I can kind of see it in some of the screenshots getting shared around.
Likewise, many believe that the official key art for the game, which was shared on Shift Up CEO Hyung-tae Kim’s social accounts, also include genAI elements. This one is pretty convincing, as the windows on the buildings in the background all look a bit off to me.
I feel it’s important to point out that this AI-generated piece of “key art” for Stellar Blade Blood Rain is currently being shared on the social media accounts of Stellar Blade director and Shift Up CEO Hyung-tae Kim, who has publicly advocated for the use of AI-generated… pic.twitter.com/g7RWXVRsx8
— Mæster Gekko (@MGecko117) June 6, 2026
While this might come off as a kneejerk reaction to some, Shift Up’s endorsement of genAI has some approaching the whole thing with extra skepticism. After all, during the company’s “2026 Economic Growth Strategy” conference in January, Hyung-tae Kim, Shift Up’s CEO and Stellar Blade’s director, appeared to offer a pretty strong endorsement of the controversial technology and its potential application in game development. “One person can perform the work of 100 people” when utilizing AI tools, he said at the time.
“We devote around 150 people to a single game, but China puts in between 1,000 to 2,000,” stated Kim. “We lack the capacity to compete, both in terms of quality and volume of content.”
While everyone’s extra jumpy about genAI popping up where it’s least expected, Kim’s comments make Stellar Blade: Blood Rain likely to become a target of extra scrutiny. Kotaku has reached out to Shift Up for comment but didn’t immediately hear back from a PR rep for the game.
