The game from the Korean studio Shift Up for PS5 has raised suspicions long before its launch. Whether because of the figure of its protagonist or because—as we mentioned in our review and in the analysis of Eve’s sexualization— was adopted as a flag by a group of bullies and misogynists. But now that we have it in our hands and discovered that it is a very fun game, one more controversy arose: they say that Stellar Blade was affected by censorship.
Although this is an action game, there is no doubt that one of its main attractions is how sexy the protagonist Eve is. Throughout the adventure we can find more than 30 outfits for her and most are quite revealing or highlight their voluptuous shapes. But there are two of them that have raised the ire of a subset of players: summer bunny y Cyber bondage.
In-game, these outfits look like this:
They’re very sexy and revealing, but those players aren’t complaining that they’re not at all suited to fighting monsters in the middle of the desert or that Eve wouldn’t wear something like that considering her personality. They are not sexy enough.
What were the changes made by the alleged censorship in Stellar Blade?
In the pre-release version of Stellar Bladethe Summer Bunny and Cyber Bondage outfits looked like this.
It is true that they are different. In the launch version, the first one does not have such a wide neckline and has a lace protector underneath, in addition to being larger in the pelvic area. The second also reveals more of the protagonist’s breasts.
These changes—along with the supposed reduction of violent and the change in graffiti that could be considered a racist insult— unleashed the fury of that group of ‘gamers’. Shouting that they oppose censorship, they started a campaign asking Shift Up and PlayStation to restore the content to its original glory.
Is it really a case of censorship?
It is true that, in the past, Sony has asked some studios to make changes to their games to authorize their release on PlayStation platforms. One of the most famous cases was that of the independent game Martha is Dead and you can read all about it here. In that title, a disturbing sequence that is interactive on Xbox and PC was turned into a video sequence on PlayStation.
But what of Stellar Blade It doesn’t seem to be censorship. To start, Kim Hyung-tae, director of the game, said it himself.
During a question and answer session in Korea, an attendee asked him directly about the censorship in the day 1 patch and if he was going to give players the option to play without that censorship. This was what the director responded.
«We are aware of the matter and we want to clarify that this is the final product as we wanted and with costumes suitable for certain age groups. “I know my answer won’t make everyone happy and we can’t promise anything about it, but we have discussed the matter internally.”
This, coupled with the promise the team made that the game would not be censored in any country, should have killed the discussion. The game that came out has the costumes just the way they wanted to make them. These kinds of changes in day one patches are fairly common and rarely have to do with any censorship—if they had elements that publishers wanted to censor, they probably wouldn’t have passed certification—but we don’t see players shouting “censorship.” due to volume changes in the audio, adjustments to game mechanics or changing the font in a menu.
Crying gamers with conspiracy theories
But that group of players did not accept this. They continue to insist that this has to be Sony’s fault and to this end they have invented several “theories” that are now floating around the Internet.
- “Sony forced Shift Up to say that so as not to take the blame for censorship.”
- “They censored the suits because the journalists blackmailed them by giving the game bad ratings if they didn’t.”
- “The changes were made without authorization from the game designers.”
- “Sony did this to then release the suits without censorship and gain good press.”
All this is, of course, absurd. The most absurd thing is that we are discussing this because The game has even more revealing outfits, including a bikini, that are uncensored. Why is a group of adult gamers—we can confirm from their social media profiles that the vast majority of those who complain are over 25 years old—get so upset because a virtual character’s sexy suit has a little more fabric? How might that affect your enjoyment of the game? The protagonist didn’t stop being sexy because of that!
It’s very easy to make jokes about how pathetic these people are. Yes they are, but there is a more worrying underlying reason. The reason why they are complaining about the changes in these costumes and not about other changes present in this or other games is very clear: They are not willing to give up even one millimeter of their “right” to sexualize women.
The usual
This “controversy” is not new. It is the same one we have been talking about since the beginning of March when the same gamers decided to harass consulting groups like Sweet Baby Inc. and Black Girl Gamers, accusing them of “ruining video games.”
By saying that they are “the same gamers” we do not mean that they are the same type of people, we mean that they are literally the same group. They may say that “It is not about inches of fabric but the principle in which we will not accept censorship under any circumstances”, which sounds coherent, but it is not what they demonstrate with their actions. It is clear that these issues only begin to matter to them when they have to do with less female sexualization or the presence of characters who are not white.
We oppose censorship and find it aberrant in all circumstances, but the fact that the same team has decided to alter costumes on their own because they consider them inappropriate or that they have removed graffiti because they did not know that it could be considered offensive is not censorship. It’s part of the normal process of creating something.
Stellar Blade It has a lot of problems and its protagonist is definitely sexualized, but it’s a great game that deserves much better and more mature players. Ones that don’t throw a tantrum over the size of a neckline.
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