Shift Up, the studio behind the upcoming action-adventure game Stellar Blade, has announced that they’ve entered a publishing agreement with PlayStation, becoming the first Korean-based studio to join PlayStation’s second-party partners.  

As reported by Korean-based news outlet Game Chosun, PlayStation will now be fully in charge of distributing Stellar Blade worldwide on the PS5 in a new publishing agreement. There aren’t many details on the deal, though it shouldn’t be as surprising considering PlayStation’s prior investment in the IP, including a reported partnership months back. 

Previously, Stellar Blade, known as Project Eve at the time of its announcement, was scheduled to come out on Xbox and PlayStation. However, it seemed (rumored) that the project ran into funding issues, facing possible cancellation entirely. This led to PlayStation assisting the studio, and when Project Eve resurfaced as Stellar Blade, it was revealed that the Xbox version had been canceled.

The big news is that Shift Up has become the first Korean studio to sign such a deal with PlayStation. While they aren’t first-party, as in officially owned by PlayStation, a second-party deal means their title will remain exclusive for an unforeseeable future, possibly forever. 

Assuming Stellar Blade manages to be a hit, are we potentially seeing the foundations being built for a possible acquisition down the road? Only time will tell.

Stellar Blade has no release date. It was initially scheduled to be released this year, though given that we are nearly in the last month of the year, it’s safe to say it’s been pushed back to 2024. This deal announcement does come at an odd time, and if we were betting, we’d guess that a release date announcement is right around the corner, especially with The Game Awards airing in a couple of weeks.