The Stellar Blade Censorship Controversy Explained

09/05/2024

The ‘Free Stellar Blade’ petition has over 80,000 signatures. Sony has been refunding copies of the game for ‘false advertising.’ With arguments about video game censorship, sexism, and artistic integrity raging across the internet, it’s time to look at what Stellar Blade’s controversy is all about.

First announced in 2019 as Project EVE, Stellar Blade is a post-cyberpunk action-RPG inspired by 90s anime OVAs like Battle Angel Alita, and open-world action-RPGs like Nier Automata and the recent God of War games. The game follows Eve, as she ventures across a post-apocalyptic earth to save humanity from the grotesque biomechanical Naytiba.

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Stellar Blade Was Marketed as Uncensored

After its title reveal in 2022, Stellar Blade’s marketing shifted focus away from the game’s plot and onto the game’s sexualized character designs and over-the-top violence. While the game’s lore, worldbuilding and character designs are undoubtedly interesting, developer Shift Up Games instead chose to focus on marketing Stellar Blade as ‘uncensored,’ claiming that they would refuse to capitulate to the game’s vision to any group or government’s moral framework.

Stellar Blade Was a Lightning Rod For Disgruntled Gamers

While Shift Up’s decision to market the game as ‘uncensored’ was likely more a response to recent controversies surrounding Japanese rating board CERO’s ever-tightening restrictions on acceptable content in games—recently, the Dead Space remake was refused a rating by the board and is not available for sale in Japan, effectively banning it—Stellar Blade’s sexualised characters, combined with a refusal to kowtow to censorship, caused many gamers to latch onto it as a symbolic pushback against perceived trends in Western media of artists censoring their work to avoid offending audiences.

Because of this, it came as a shock to many gamers when Stellar Blade featured a day one patch which made alterations to the game’s content, toning down violence and suggestive themes, and removing content which, though not intended to be offensive, had the potential to cause offense. While Shift Up claims that these changes were always intended to be part of the final version, many fans remain skeptical of this claim.

Stellar Blades Day One Patch Changed Three Things

There are three major elements which were affected by the patch: Eve’s costumes, the game’s violence, and a piece of graffiti in the game’s overworld. While censorship of the game’s violence is causing more discourse in Japan—where CERO’s aversion to virtual violence is causing many games to be effectively banned in the country—in the West, fans are more concerned with censorship of the game’s costumes and accidentally racially insensitive graffiti. This has resulted in Stellar Blade becoming the focal point of a wider discourse about the influence of political/social preferences on game design, and the self-censorship of artists worried about upsetting or offending groups with social influence.

Stellar Blade’s costume designs being changed—lace being added to cover cleavage and exposed thigh—has seen some fans claim that the changes were requested by Sony in response to negative critical reactions to the game’s marketing by Western critics who believed the game’s character designs were sexist. While Shift Up denies this—with the game’s director claiming that the costumes in the day-one patch are how the final versions were always intended to look—Sony has been issuing gamers with refunds for ‘false advertising,’ and these refunds have been seen by some as an admission of guilt. A change.org petition calling for Stellar Blade to be reverted to its pre-patch state—created by ex-Blizzard executive and online ‘anti-woke’ activist, Mark Kern—has been signed by over 80,000 people.

One of the patch’s changes included altering a piece of graffiti that said HARD next to a neon letter-R. The graffiti now says CRIME. This change was made because the two elements taken together were read by many American gamers as unintentionally referencing a racial slur.

The Stellar Blade Controversy Has Sparked Important Conversations

Though the reasons behind Shift Up’s decision to patch Stellar Blade’s content remain a mystery, the patch has caused significant discussion in gaming communities across the globe. While in the West the changes have caused heated arguments about decency, sensitivity, artistic freedom and the role a publisher has in enforcing censorship on developers to avoid controversy, in Japan the changes have caused disappointment and conversations about government censorship and the role of ratings boards in deciding the acceptability of art.

Stellar Blade

Platform(s)PS5ReleasedApril 26, 2024Developer(s)Shift UpPublisher(s)Sony Interactive EntertainmentGenre(s)Action RPGMetascore82PS Plus AvailabilityN/A See at Amazon