Leaker alleges that Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is working on gacha game inspired by Expedition 33: ‘The devs are not that excited with the game’

It seems Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is falling prey to the video game industry's trend-chasing fallacy and is allegedly working on a gacha game that suddenly shifted (pun intended) from a hunting to a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33-style game. Stellar Blade 2 remains the focus of the company's main team. Image via Shift Up As per Dante Alexandru of Need4Games, Project Spirits is currently in development at Shift Up. It's a gacha game styled after the wildly popular Expedition 33, itself a turn-based JRPG with loads of modernizations that break the mold and really make it its own genre. According to his report, this wasn't always the case, and it seems the game changed from a PvE-oriented hunting game into one following in Sandfall's footsteps. Thankfully, Alexandru says this is being made by Shift Up's secondary studio, almost entirely produced in China rather than the company's home of Korea. The main studio in that country is still focused primarily on Stellar Blade 2, which we spoke of last year. While it's unclear when Stellar Blade 2 will come out, this reported gacha clone is apparently aiming for a 2027 release, i.e., next year, but since it's being made by a separate team, it likely won't have much of an impact on the sequel's schedule. It's also good to note that the report says the Korean side's employees were not at all excited for the gacha, so it would appear that side of the business isn't going to make its way into the main series. At least one would hope so. The post Leaker alleges that Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is working on gacha game inspired by Expedition 33: ‘The devs are not that excited with the game’ appeared first on Destructoid.

Mar 19, 2026 - 04:17

Leaker alleges that Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is working on gacha game inspired by Expedition 33: ‘The devs are not that excited with the game’

It seems Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is falling prey to the video game industry's trend-chasing fallacy and is allegedly working on a gacha game that suddenly shifted (pun intended) from a hunting to a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33-style game.

Stellar Blade 2 remains the focus of the company's main team. Image via Shift Up As per Dante Alexandru of Need4Games, Project Spirits is currently in development at Shift Up. It's a gacha game styled after the wildly popular Expedition 33, itself a turn-based JRPG with loads of modernizations that break the mold and really make it its own genre. According to his report, this wasn't always the case, and it seems the game changed from a PvE-oriented hunting game into one following in Sandfall's footsteps.

Thankfully, Alexandru says this is being made by Shift Up's secondary studio, almost entirely produced in China rather than the company's home of Korea. The main studio in that country is still focused primarily on Stellar Blade 2, which we spoke of last year. While it's unclear when Stellar Blade 2 will come out, this reported gacha clone is apparently aiming for a 2027 release, i.e., next year, but since it's being made by a separate team, it likely won't have much of an impact on the sequel's schedule.

It's also good to note that the report says the Korean side's employees were not at all excited for the gacha, so it would appear that side of the business isn't going to make its way into the main series. At least one would hope so.

The post Leaker alleges that Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is working on gacha game inspired by Expedition 33: ‘The devs are not that excited with the game’ appeared first on Destructoid.

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