Developer Shift Up has announced that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stellar Blade will be launching uncensored across all territories ahe🀅ad of its release later this week, putting to rest non-existent fears the game will be nipped and tucke🧜d 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 for of certain games so that global au♉diences aren’t turned off, while it in 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.

Stellar Blade - All Three Main Characters

To celebrate that something is released uncensored is to imply there was something worthy of censorship in the first place, andꦿ 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 E🐼vil.

When you put aside all the major talking points, Stellar Blade appears to be a pretty competent Soulsborne/character action title with l🦄ots 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 r🐈ecent 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 like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE, which at the time was panned by niche audiences when Nintendo decided to cover up a main character’s much-memed ‘’ 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 was⭕n’t ready to commit to without alterations.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE

YouTube Channels like frequently talk about how localisers or translators are looking to change or Westernise Japanese ga💎mes, 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 alteratꦚions with a hostile attitude.

It’s like the experience we were meant to have has been bastardised, when localisation staff are 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:more than likely to do the opposite, as they curate dialogue, designs🌄, and other references to best fit their int💟ended 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 game🔯rs 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 ta꧅inted, 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 th⛦e chopping block to begin with, this proclamation means 𒁏nothing. If anything, it does more harm than good.

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Your Rating

168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Stellar Blade
Action RPG
Systems
3.5/5
Top Critic Avg: 82/100 Critics Rec: 82%
Released
April 26, 2024
ESRB
M for Mature
Developer(s)
Shift Up
Publisher(s)
꧅ Sony Inte🅷ractive Entertainment
Engine
Unreal Engine 4

WHERE TO PLAY

PHYSICAL

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.