‘We Will Put In Our Best Efforts To Develop For It’ – Stellar Blade CTO Wants Xbox Helix Dev Kit
Shift Up CTO DongKi Lee, best known for his work on Stellar Blade and the studio’s mobile games, recently spoke at a developer panel about his excitement to get hands-on with Xbox Project Helix development kits. All whilst in front of a senior official of team Xbox.
As Inven Global puts it, Lee was one of five panellists, comprised of execs from other development studios, and answered questions on what it’s like developing games for console in the Korean gaming industry.
When asked about what advantages the console platforms have compared to PC, fellow panellist and former Tekken CEO Katsuhiro Harada took the opportunity to throw some shade at the Xbox Series S, jesting “I wish hardware like the ‘Xbox Series S’ wouldn’t be released”, attributing additional development resources to optimising games for the lower spec console.
In response to this, the Shift Up CTO spoke about his excitement to work alongside Xbox and his eagerness to see Project Helix developer kits in Korea:
“Personally, I am looking forward to the next-gen Xbox ‘Helix’. From an engineer’s standpoint, if you provide us with a dev kit first in Korea as early as possible, we will put in our best efforts to develop for it.”
Xbox players have been asking for a Stellar Blade port for quite some time, regularly mocking up fake Xbox Series box art and posting it to socials, and usually asking when Shift Up will bring the game to Microsoft hardware. It’s certainly a possibility, and DongKi Lee’s enthusiasm for working with Project Helix is encouraging. That, and this tweet from Edo, Shift Up’s ‘publishing guy’:
During the panel, Lee was asked about the recent Switch 2 version of Stellar Blade and the effort involved in porting the game from PS5 to NS2. The Shift Up CTO shared a chuckle with the panel moderator and CEO Harada whilst discussing what could and couldn’t be compromised during the port. Specifically, how reducing the polygon count on protagonist Eve’s ‘rear’ was “never an option”.
