If You Were Excited About Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, Here’s An AI-Slop Music Video To Fix That

Shift Up released an AI-generated music video to promote Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, the upcoming sequel to its 2024 action title. The video features protagonist Evie singing an original song called "Wanna be in Love" while traversing the dystopian cyberpunk setting shown in the game's Summer Game Fest announcement trailer.

The entire production appears completely AI-generated, from visuals to audio. The promotional approach immediately drew criticism from players and industry observers who view the use of generative AI as creatively hollow and dismissive of human artists. This marks another high-profile gaming studio embracing AI-generated content for marketing purposes, joining a growing trend that has sparked ongoing debate about authenticity in game promotion.

Stellar Blade: Blood Rain builds on the original Stellar Blade's action-combat framework. The first game launched in 2024 to solid player reception, establishing Evie as a capable protagonist in a mechanically sound soulslike action title. The sequel signals Shift Up's confidence in the franchise's potential, though the developer's choice to lean on AI marketing materials rather than commission human artists or produce in-house promotional content has raised eyebrows.

The timing proves particularly tone-deaf. As AI-generated content floods gaming spaces, players increasingly vocalize concerns about the technology's impact on creative workers. Major studios have faced backlash for similar moves. Shift Up's decision to deploy AI-slop for something as creative as a music video, especially when promoting an action title that itself depends on skilled animation and design work, underscores broader industry tensions around generative technology.

The video itself reportedly lacks visual coherence and charm characteristic of human-directed promotional work, which explains the immediate negative reception. Whether the strategy damages Blood Rain's marketing momentum remains to be seen, but the choice certainly complicates player goodwill heading into the game's eventual