Developer Shift Up has announced thatStellar Bladewill belaunching uncensored across all territories ahead of its release later this week, putting to rest non-existent fears the game will be nipped and tucked in the name of censorship. Was this ever the case, or is it being hailed as a victory to continue the newfound culture war the game has been caught up in?
It’s a complicated situation, and to understand it we need to look at the relationship between censorship and video games and how their experiences often change depending on when or where we have them. Japan is known forscaling down the difficultyof certain games so that global audiences aren’t turned off, while itwill often be less willing to depict graphic or bloody violencein ways that Western audiences embrace. It’s rarely about companies trying to stifle our creative expression or free speech. Normally, it’s just ratings board stuff and wanting to sell more copies based on spreadsheet data.
To celebrate that something is released uncensored is to imply there was something worthy of censorship in the first place, and when it comes to Stellar Blade, I’m unsure where exactly that assumption is coming from. The game is already blatant in showing off Eve’s body, while the violence in the trailers and demo seems no worse than most of the triple-A games we play these days. It’s grotesque and unique, but so is Resident Evil.
When you put aside all the major talking points, Stellar Blade appears to be a pretty competent Soulsborne/character action title with lots of cool outfits to unlock and try on.
Despite struggling to find where the censorship might take place, Stellar Blade managed to trend on Twitter shortly after this announcement regardless. The official social media also leaned into this news as a form of marketing, with the expectant audiences jumping in to try and praise it for sticking it to the man. What man that is I don’t know, but I assume he’s over on the left somewhere. It’s embarrassing,and much like we’ve written about on TheGamer in recent weeks, this sort of perspective makes us ashamed to enjoy a game which otherwise ticks all the right boxes.
Stellar Blade moves in the same circles as censorship for games likeTokyo Mirage SessionsFE, which at the time was panned by niche audiences when Nintendo decided to cover up a main character’s much-memed ‘vagina bones’ in select cutscenes. Outfits were edited to cover up (and reduce) cleavage, while detailing was removed to move away from the illusion of nudity. I don’t think it was necessary, and in the years since we have seen far more risque designs in games like Fire Emblem and Persona, but back then, Nintendo was dipping its toes into a more mature direction, one that it wasn’t ready to commit to without alterations.
YouTube Channels likeCensored Gamingfrequently talk about how localisers or translators are looking to change or Westernise Japanese games, filling them with inaccuracies designed to spread messages and ideas the source material never intended. There is historical value to documenting how games are adapted or changed for each region, but it is a mistake for audiences to constantly approach these alterations with a hostile attitude.
It’s like the experience we were meant to have has been bastardised, when localisation staff aremore than likely to do the opposite,as they curate dialogue, designs, and other references to best fit their intended market. Not all of these decisions are going to be right, but by turning it into a culture war where there is no room for debate, we don’t help anyone.
Shift Up hasn’t specified exactly what in Stellar Blade will remain uncensored in the globally released versions, which begs the question of why it was worth bringing up in the first place. It was enough bait for anti-censorship gamers to join the conversation and see this marketing announcement as a hollow victory for a war the other side wasn’t even aware was going on.
I certainly wasn’t, and I’ve played and enjoyed the Stellar Blade demo more than enough to put money down on the full game. Yet it already feels tainted, like we’ll look back on Stellar Blade as a pawn in this fruitless battle for conventionally attractive women in video games and a lack of censorship that proves, once and for all, that the gamers have won.
Stellar Blade is uncensored, but until you show me exactly what was on the chopping block to begin with, this proclamation means nothing. If anything, it does more harm than good.
Stellar Blade
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Stellar Blade is an action-driven game from Shift Up, originally revealed as Project Eve. It follows the aforementioned Eve as she battles the alien Naytiba invaders, in a bid to reclaim the Earth for humanity.
