Stellar Blade is one of the most prominent and memorable releases of 2024. For obvious reasons, the game has received a lot of love from the fandom, especially from its main character.

It attracted some hate, too, before its release, as some believed the main character’s proportions to be exaggerated even though her whole design is based on a real-life model.

Despite such criticism, the Korean action-adventure title did wonders for Shift Up, leading to a $33.1 million profit. For creating such a great game and working hard on other projects, Shift Up has now rewarded its employees.

The developer has gifted each employee a PS5 Pro along with $3.4k.

Why it matters: It is extremely important to create a non-toxic work environment and keep the team’s morale high. Incentives like these help achieve certain goals pretty quickly.
Stellar Blade Has Performed Quite Well on PlayStation 5, But The Developer Believes It Will Perform Even Better on PC
Speaking to Naver, a South Korean media outlet, one of Shift Up’s representatives revealed that bonuses were given to every employee in order to encourage them. The developer gave the employees a PlayStation 5 Pro and a bonus of 5 million won, which equals $3.4k.

Shift Up, which recorded a box office hit last year with the console game Stellar Blade, announced on the 6th that it paid out a ‘PS (PlayStation) 5 Pro’ and a bonus of 5 million won to all employees.

There are currently over 300 employees working at the company, so the developer has spent a lot of money to boost morale. Such practises should be made common as hard-working employees who dedicate themselves to their work should be treated with utmost respect.

Unfortunately, the trend of layoffs is more popular nowadays, as between 2023 and 2024, around 25k employees have been laid off from the gaming industry. Only gaming giants like Nintendo haven’t followed this trend; otherwise, layoffs have become pretty common.

Due to that, Shift Up treating its employees this way seems special. Fans should also notice that Stellar Blade has been announced for PC as well. While there isn’t a release date given, it is expected to hit the platform mid-way through 2025.