Shift Up Company is back in the conversation after studio head and series creator Hyun Tae Kim talked about the new heroine — Evie — in Stellar Blade: Blood Rain. In an interview he mentioned new costumes that would be "even more attractive," a short remark that quickly drew sharp pushback from parts of the gaming press. Kotaku published a piece taking aim at both that comment and the game’s debut trailer; the author called some of the character physics shown in the footage "disturbing," argued that certain angles and poses were overly sexualized, and suggested the new heroine looked too young for that kind of depiction.
There’s an added wrinkle: Shift Up has said Evie was intentionally designed younger and shorter vs. Eve (the protagonist from the first game). The studio counters that the emphasis should be on who she is — her personality, how she fights, and what she means to the story — rather than only how she looks. Hyun Tae Kim, for his part, described Evie as having a brighter temperament and being thrown into tougher fights than the original heroine; he also said players will likely form an opinion once they learn her backstory and place in the Blood Rain world.
For context: Stellar Blade: Blood Rain was revealed at Summer Game Fest 2026 and is billed as a standalone sequel with a new lead, a larger cyberpunk city, and a reworked combat focus that leans into hand-to-hand encounters. The project is still early in development and release dates are TBD (i.e., not announced yet).