Stellar Blade director is now one of the richest people in South Korea lol mainly because of Eve's PLOT lol
Kim Hyung-tae's rise to billionaire-level riches is pretty damn impressive.
Having started out as a video game artist, Kim would go on to establish Shift Up, the development studio behind PS5 hit Stellar Blade — and now he's worth a not-so-small fortune.
According to Forbes, Kim is now counted amongst the 50 richest people in Korea, boasting a net worth in the region of $725 million.
Of course, much of Shift Up's financial success stems from its waifu-packed mobile title Goddess of Victory: Nikke — a game so popular that the developer could afford to branch out into the more hardcore, single-player action space with Stellar Blade.
Kim remains hands-on with his creations, though. With Stellar Blade, he's credited as director, co-producer, and co-designer, despite sitting at the very top of the company as chairman.
It'll be interesting to see what Shift Up does next. The studio's clearly in a strong position — it had a record-breaking 2024 — but it'll all depend on the direction that it wants to take. We know the developer's working on something right now, but there's been no clear indication of whether it's more in line with Nikke, or Stellar Blade.