Stellar Blade Switch 2 Gamescom 2026 Interview

Stellar Blade's Technical Director Talks AI, Switch 2 Port, And The Potential Of Blood Rain On Nintendo Published Sep 2, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT Sam Woods is TheGamer’s Senior Reporter. He’s been in games journalism since 2020 and has undertaken a variety of roles in that time. These have included roles such as SEO Editor, Managing Editor at DualShockers, and Global Head of Gaming, and he's also been seen on the BBC. He was promoted to the Senior Reporter position in 2025 following a series of high-quality reports and exclusives for TheGamer. Since 2020, Sam has written over 2,500 articles and specializes in telling the stories of the people behind the games. He’s interviewed the biggest game directors, some of the industry’s top talents, told the stories of how indie games came to be, and spoken to players about what really makes them tick. He’s also interviewed some of the world’s biggest musical artists to find out how the medium has inspired their work, and TV and Film actors about their roles in video game adaptations. He even hosted a PAX panel in 2021 and made a documentary in 2024 surrounding the creation of a Disney game. Alongside this, Sam focuses on breaking news. He got the scoop on Perfect Dark’s cancellation, got context around some AI drama, and revealed how Lady Dimitrescu’s actress would love to step back into the character’s giant shoes. These articles have been picked up by the biggest gaming sites, including IGN, GameSpot, and PC Gamer. He also loves to dive into the numbers behind the games. Sam’s journey in games journalism has taken him all over the world. He’s covered Gamescom in Germany, Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, and Tokyo Game Show in Japan, each on more than one occasion. He’s been learning Japanese since 2024 with the intention of identifying and translating Japanese-language news and bringing it to English-language audiences first, something he’s done countless times. Sam’s first review was 2020’s Battletoads reboot, and he’s since reviewed games in The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and Pokemon franchises. Two years after its original release, Korean studio Shift Up's smash hit Stellar Blade is making its way to the Nintendo Switch 2. Ahead of its release later this year, we sat down with DongKi Lee, CTO of Shift Up and Stellar Blade Technical Director, to discuss how the Switch port came to be, the backlash against its recent AI music video, and the chance that Stellar Blade's sequel, Blood Rain, will get the same port treatment. TheGamer: Stellar Blade has remained successful for a long time now. You see it everywhere. Was this success something the team ever anticipated? DongKi Lee: We didn't expect it. We just thought that if we worked really hard on it, our fans would eventually love it. So I guess that's what happened. We first released it on PlayStation, and then for a year, we really poured our heart into it. Then the PC version came out, and now the Switch 2 as well. So we're just very thankful and grateful to our players. TG: How long had you planned for a Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 version of the game? Was this something you always wanted to do? DL: When we decided to expand to the Switch, the Switch 2 was already out, so I guess we naturally went straight to Switch 2. Also, considering the performance we needed, we just thought, 'Okay, Switch 2 would be a better fit.' One of my favorite games is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It's an honor to present our game to Switch users. TG: How easy was it to port the game to Switch 2? Did the system make it quite easy to do? Because we see massive games like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil running on the platform. DL: Rather than saying it was easy or difficult, it's always a new experience. We learn something new every time, and it gives us know-how and skills that definitely help in the future for other platforms. We worked on this port for about a year, and it actually went pretty smoothly. For the game to run really well on Switch too, we did have to work on, for example, performance optimization, memory optimization, and switching between the two modes, handheld and dock mode. So those were definitely needed, but it went pretty smoothly. TG: What considerations do you have to make because the Switch is portable? Do you have to consider things like draw distance differently because of the portability? DL: One thing that we had to keep in mind was that for portable devices, it always has better performance in dock mode rather than handheld, so performance was very important. And also, when you're playing in dock mode, you're playing on a larger screen, so the aspect ratio, proportions, and text size are different from on a handheld. Regarding the field of view, we were quite conservative. TG: Were there any big sacrifices you had to make with the Switch 2 version of Stellar Blade? DL: I guess in terms of performance and memory, but rather than calling it a sacrifice, we just wanted people on whatever device or platform they're playing Stellar Blade on to have the same experience. We didn't want anything to differ by platform, and we wanted to provide the same experience. We just had to work on that accordingly for each device. We would adjust performance; the memory balance also varies significantly across platforms. So the same thing for Switch 2. We had to do memory optimization. If the performance wasn't so great, we would change the logic, and if the I.O. speed wasn't satisfactory, we would fix that as well. TG: Hypothetically, could the lessons you learned from porting Stellar Blade to the Switch 2 be used in other games? Perhaps a giant sequel you have coming out in the future? DL: Expanding to a new platform will always help. The experience that the dev team will gain, for example, like PlayStation, we learned a lot, and then PC and now Switch 2. Yes, that will always help, and definitely for the sequel as well. It will be helpful for other projects we develop, most certainly, because it is given that you will learn something new every time you are dealing with a new device or new platform. TG: Recently, a music video was posted online that was clearly AI-generated, and it got quite a lot of backlash, at least from Western media. What was the decision behind this video? What was it trying to show? DL: The reason we revealed that music video was to show more of the beauty of Stellar Blade Blood Rain. We wanted to show the world view and the character Evie. We just wanted to show a little more of each, and we did that as part of the content. But then we do take seriously and importantly what the fans have been saying, and the concerns they have been expressing about the music video, and from now on we definitely want to make a clear separation between the two, like game-related content and what we would call experimental content, like what we are experimenting with. TG: What are the views of AI within Shift Up? DL: AI has a lot of influence and impact on game development. But when we are using certain technologies or tools, what's important is the direction and purpose they serve. It needs to be used in a way that supports the developers' creativity, know-how, and skills. It should be used as a tool. That's the direction, and its purpose would be to make a great, high-quality game. Systems Released April 26, 2024 ESRB M for Mature Developer(s) Shift Up Publisher(s) Sony Interactive Entertainment Engine Unreal Engine 4 Genre(s) Action RPG