Fans Bash The AI-Generated Stellar Blade: Blood Rain Music Video

The latest Stellar Blade: Blood Rain music video has landed for all the wrong reasons. Instead of building excitement around the project, its use of generative AI has sparked a wave of criticism from fans.

Shift Up Used AI To Generate A KPOP Music Video With Japanese Lyrics

The controversy began after the release of an AI-generated Stellar Blade: BLOODRAIN music video titled “Wanna Be in Love” feat. Evie by Shift Up. And like all AI videos, it looked absolutely horrendous. Constant changes between facial features, inconsistent background and character movement, and an overall lifeless look to the main character, Evie.

Adding to the irony of the situation, the music video used the hashtag #kpop under the video while the lyrics were in Japanese, showing how lazy the “production” of this video was. Naturally, the comments were filled with people flaming the developer.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the director of Shift Up previously stated they have to adopt AI technology to compete with China and the US.

While a hugely divisive topic, Kim believes that because countries like South Korea “lack the capacity to compete, both in terms of quality and volume of content,” making the most of generative AI could see one trained developer “perform the work of 100 people.”

Director Of Stellar Blade Responds To The Criticism

When asked why Shift Up embraced AI slop instead of using their talented artists, here is what director Kim Hyung Tae had to say.  

EVIE, the character at the heart of this video, was created from head to toe by our talented artists and modelers through more than a year of dedicated work. 

The AI is not creating her from scratch. It is rendering and presenting the character based on the data, designs, and craftsmanship our team created.

We would truly appreciate it if you could view the work with that understanding in mind.

From his statement, it’s clear the director understands the hard work of the studio’s artists but doesn’t understand why content generated by AI feels soulless and lazy.

Stellar Blade: Blood Rain Could Potentially Use Generative AI

The director’s response appears to leave the door open for generative AI to play some role in Stellar Blade: Blood Rain. However, its exact purpose, scale, and implementation can only be guessed.

The music video, the AI-generated cover art, and the director’s comment leave a huge question mark on the integrity of Stellar Blade’s sequel regarding generative AI.