Earlier today, Stellar Blade dev Shift Up created a new company social media account and immediately posted a message: “There are some calls that need to be answered.”
The caption was attached to a video of CEO Kim Hyung-Tae dramatically answering a phone call. It ends with a black screen and the message “announcement coming soon” in both Korean and English.
We shrugged the post aside because it teases a 1st April follow-up, the worst day in the Roman calendar for anyone working in the media.
But now we’ve seen a similar video featuring Capcom icon Shinji Mikami and it’s made us pause.
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The video, posted to Unbound Games’ social media page, shows the Resident Evil director talking to another shadowy figure, who looks and sounds like none other than Kim Hyung-Tae.
The discussion goes as follows, in Japanese:
Mikami: Together, you and me, let’s make games together that will change the world.
Shadowy Figure: Let’s do it. I will put all my effort into it.
Mikami: And I will do the same.
Now what’s particularly interesting is that the video ends with the exact same splash screen as the Shift Up one, saying “announcement coming soon”, this time in both Japanese and English.
So, could this all be a big April Fools joke? Well, we suppose so, but we know Mikami has set up a new studio and Shift Up certainly has the funds to help publish his game.
As revealed recently, Unbound is working on a new AAA title, and we wouldn’t be shocked at all if the Stellar Blade dev was using some of its sizeable bank balance to help bring it to life.
Let’s see how this story develops because we are joining a few dots based on publicly available information here, but watch this space…