Shift Up under fire for making new Nikke quality-of-life features exclusive to China

Developer Shift Up is under fire from the global community of its successful gacha shooter, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, due to the differences between the title’s global version and the Chinese version, which was released on May 22, 2025.

The Chinese version of the game contains several exclusive character outfits as well as new quality-of-life features — and players have been especially critical of the latter, deeming it unacceptable to region-lock such improvements and withhold them from part of the playerbase without good reason.

Shift Up responded to the criticism in a recent dev blog and what Nikke director Yoo Hyung-seok had to say about the topic didn’t exactly calm the waves.

“We understand that some people may question why certain new costumes and convenience features are only launching in China, and we completely understand those feelings,” he wrote. “But we believe that the two versions, China and Global, will grow in their own directions under different conditions and circumstances and that one day their differences will enrich one another. For now, we hope you understand that we are in the middle of this improvement process.”

“Since we’re in different environments, differences in these updates are inevitable, however, we’ll share feedback and direction as we go so that our paths can ultimately lead to a better future for each version. Starting with loading improvements, we’re working on a number of global releases and improvements that we’ll be announcing in future developer’s notes. We remain committed to supporting the global version with our full effort and will continue working to strengthen both versions together,” he added.

Players essentially interpreted this response to mean ‘deal with it’ and remain pretty upset by the entire affair.

Shift Up recently revealed that it’s working on a Stellar Blade sequel in a thoroughly positive financial report and is looking to bring Stellar Blade to PC soon — including a crossover with Nikke in both games, making this current controversy especially badly timed.