
If you were concerned that the PS5-exclusive Stellar Blade, out 26th April on PS5, might run afoul of Sony's censors, fear not. Developer ShiftUp is advertising that the game will remain entirely uncensored in all regions, including Japan.
We'll be honest: this wasn't something we'd even considered could be a problem (or a prospective selling point), as protagonist Eve and her costumes, or lack thereof, have featured so prominently in the lead-up to the game's launch. Still, we're glad to see ShiftUp so excited its vision will soon be in the hands of millions (probably) of players.
In other Stellar Blade news, Yoko Taro reckons it's better than NieR: Automata, and we were glad to discover the game will remain respectful of your PS5 storage space. You can try out the demo now, which almost managed to double the daily active users of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's own, pretty impressive stuff for a first-time console showing.
Will you be there for Stellar Blade on day one? Are you glad to see the game wasn't censored at the eleventh hour? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 48
Im interested to see how well this game does commercially and wether we'll see another shift in the ever changing gaming landscape.
The demo ran smoothy and liked the combat mechanics. Day 1 for sure
Preordered and should be here by launch day. Probably won’t play until night but I’m pumped nonetheless!
Good, developers should be allowed to realise thier vision no matter who may disagree with said vision.
This goes both ways, I've been getting tired of people moaning about how a character is too ugly or too sexy and woke this, male gaze that.
Both sides shut tf up, you don't like the content? go find content you do like and not try to force everything to conform to your personal tastes and ideologies.
This is my April game. Everything I've seen of it looks promising.
I've never understood nor liked the idea of censorship so this is most welcome news. Let the content be experienced as intended by the creators. It's as simple as that.
This will play well with the audience they’re targeting.
That seems to me like a pretty shady marketing trick. Claiming that the game is “Uncensored” when there’s no content in the game that would need to be censored. Trying to make people think that there might be some extra sexy stuff in it that hasn’t already been featured in plenty of other games without issue.
PlayStation is the worst company when it comes to making developers change game content to meet their weird standards, and they’re the advertising partner for this game. It’s completely illogical to think that any content PlayStation wouldn’t approve of was either already removed long ago, or was never in the game to begin with. It’s just a stupid marketing stunt.
I'm curious how far this game will go in the "censored" territory. My guess is that there is a lot of noise to create a hype, but at the end there will be nothing more than the camera locked on the unrealistic jelly muscles of the protagonist.
You may think it didn’t need stating, but where Sony is concerned it’s always necessary unfortunately.
BG3 has full frontal nudity and strong sex scenes so i had zero doubts it would be censored.
@AsterZero Yeah back to when Hot Coffee existed and God of War sex scenes took place off camera. Gaming more then ever is open to sex and nudity.
The tweet specifically mentioning the Japanese version implies that this is about addressing violence/gore censorship more so than about sexual content.
I definitely expected Japan to get some level of gore censorship after I saw that chopped off arm in the first section of the game, given how strict their guidelines are for this kind of stuff in games. On the other hand Japan has zero issue with just having characters wearing skimpy outfits, so this is obviously not about that.
When I buy a game, I want every characters to be blurred out, or hidden behind some light magically hiding specific parts of the body. This is the only way to enjoy 4K graphics.
@Korgon Censorship exist so parents can safely buy their 8yo kids games for mature audience. At least that's how I see it. If only there was a way to know what the game includes... Like a label of some sort.
@DennisReynolds I get what you mean about the likes of the Hot Coffee controversy. But I think that sex scenes look ridiculous in video game form unless the graphics and tone are top notch. Watching two dead-eyed models make noises and bounce back and forth is cringe. I would much rather have the ''Roger Moore putting his tie on the door'' method any day because i'm not sitting there with my face in my hands.
Don't things get censored so they fall in line with the games age rating? People always moan about Sony but have they played the Last of Us 2? Or the older God of War games? If the age rating is correct then Sony don't care what devs put in their game. The only games getting censored these days anyway are Japanese games with mini games that let the user inappropriately touch underage girls breasts and other areas. This Sony is bad for censoring rhetoric is getting boring.
You want gore, sex or nudity or certain language/themes in your game then make it age rated 18, simple. It's not like parents give a damn about the age ratings either, just look at how many kids are playing call of duty and GTA.
@LifeGirl Don't get me wrong i don't care that much for sex scenes in games (though i think BG3 and Cyberpunk handle them well) i just think its laughable when people act like gaming is too prudish nowadays when it very clearly isn't, Hot Coffee caused a massive uproar and could have really impacted gaming for the worse yet compared to what Cyberpunk offers its pretty tame. Hell look at Mass Effect that game caused a meltdown to the point lies were being spread and scenes were just PG-13 level, Andromeda contains full topless female nudity and pretty strong sex and no one cared.
I doubt Stellar Blade contains much nudity though and i bet we don't see a single female nipple, it will be as graphic as Bayonetta. Anyway we already know what Eve looks like naked as she opens the game naked, that robotic form is her body laid bare.
@UltimateOtaku91 The only time Sony i feel went a bit far is censoring Trish's bare ass in DMC5. It never made sense as to why it was censored considering she's an adult and the scene wasn't even sexual in nature. They did uncensor it in the US version though Euro/UK versions remain censored.
@UltimateOtaku91 That one game where players were rewarded for groping the girls is what comes to my mind every time this conversation comes up.
I remember being concerned about the censorship too, until I saw what they were censoring.
The only mistake they made there was that they started doing this at a time when everyone is screaming "stop telling me how to live and what to think!" at everyone else.
@Gaia093 there are unnecessary amount of brutality in games and movies nowadays. They'd rather show a close-up shotgun headshot sooner than a pair of boobs. Yeah, boobs are particularly dangerous to a young, healthy mind.
@matekomlosi I don't approve of any type of censorship, so you're preaching to the choir here.
@DennisReynolds The Trish ass getting censored in the U.S. was likely a mistake considering like you stated UK hasn't had their version censored.
@Gaia093 I'm not about censorship either; I just pointed out that there's been an increase in the use of gore recently because now they can realistically do it. In the past, when someone was about to be shot in the head, the camera would just switch to the victim's point of view, and right after the shot, the screen would go dark and things like that. We also got the message this way. But now there's just too much gore, even in games/movies where I wouldn't expect it. Yet when it comes down to boobs, they tend to censor or cover them almost every time. Strange, eh?
Played the demo and also couldn’t tell what’s the thing in this game that’d require censoring. Boob physics…?
I do think the funny thing about this whole ”controversy” around Stellar Blade is that apparently there’s still an audience for those 90’s/early 2000s magazine ads that just had a photo of a hot lady and a tagline to try and sell you a game, which I guess worked on some people at least?
The gameplay really didn’t click for me, so sadly even a hot cyborg lady won’g get me to spend 80€.
@Nepp67 No we did have are versions censored, the US version got an update to be uncensored because of backlash but it was only the US version that got updated.
what's the point of censoring if we're all adults here...
@Rhaoulos
That's a great idea! I'm going to pass that suggestion along to my friend Pegi.
This game is checking all the boxes for me. Friday can't come soon enough.
I pre-ordered the Deluxe edition of the game yesterday. Hopefully the game will run smoothly, and the gameplay will excel. Really looking forward to it, though I still have to finish The Banishers at the moment (which is a really good game)...
N.i.c.e. because i like big butts and i can't not lie.😀.good.stellar blade is going to be wonderful.word up son
Another win for this developer.
I didn't notice anything in the demo that would lead me to think the game should get censored, but good to get clarification anyway. It does highlight how inconsistent Sony is when it comes to this stuff, though.
@matekomlosi
I don't know if I agree with you as far as violence in games these days. Aside fom TLoU 2 (and even that isn't over the top) everything seems more PG-13 or very light R, not like back in the 6th and 7th gens where there was an 'edge' (maybe even a bit too much for some) to the brawlers and shooters. The Like a Dragon series, as much as I love it, is particularly watered down in this category.
@ATaco we are seeing a shift up in the gaming landscape 🤭
Jiggle approved in every country. Skin suits will be seen by all. What a stellar development this is.
@HeeHo
" Both sides shut the F$#! UP"
> Standing Ovation gif<
I can't wait for this game to come out so I can see that 99% of the people earned the trophy for starting the game and playing through the introduction and then the trophies fall off as fewer and fewer people decide to keep playing.
What would be there to censor anyway? It’s not like you see any genitalia.
@MrBook
Again I must preface my comment by saying that a little bit of fan service in a game is always fun for the right games. TONS of games offer this with varying quality, Final Fantasy, Nier, Atelier series, and even Genshin/Honkai. So actually, there isn't a shortage of games with "smexy gyatt" in them.
But this game has been BLOWN out of proportion to what it is, a janky AA game. It would not have been in any conversation if this game had a "realistic" character model. I also feel that the wrong side of the fandom is using this game as a flag to wave in protest of perceived "wokeness" in games.
Sexyness in a game does not make average gameplay better, just as realism does not make great gameplay bad.
@Darude84
There wasn't any censorship of genitalia in Cyberpunk 2077. So that cannot be the censorship everyone is worried about for this game.
I would assume this is mostly in reference to the game’s violence. Regardless, the double standard is real.
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ea-japan-exec-criticises-japanese-rating-board-for-banning-dead-space-but-passing-stellar-blade/
@DennisReynolds No I mean that the U.S. version getting censored for Playstation was an accident. Especially now due to the uncensored TLOU2 sex scene.
@Darude84 Usually it would be too much skin like anime fan service games that got censored from Playstation, but it seems like they've changed?
@Nepp67 It wasn't an accident it was by design it was only changed due to backlash.
@MrBook
I did play the demo. It seemed janky to me. Or at least I couldn't forgive the jank as much as some people seem to be able to.
Don't get me wrong, I think this game deserves to exist in its current presentation. But the way it's being lifted by some of the community and used as a pillar in their so-called "war on wokeness" is a shame
This game seems fine and all, but I really wonder what the "hype" would look like if it were not PS exclusive and featured a samurai main character model with no other changes. Something tells me it would be a "looks like fodder for Game Pass" game around these parts.
@Nepp67 Let me guess: this is only the case with female bodies? Or are male torsos being censored as well?
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