Stellar Blade could be an interesting game, but it could cause discussion above all for an extra-ludic reason: the shapes of the protagonist.
Stellar Blade has found itself a bit surprisingly in the spotlight, more or less since Sony decided to make the PS5 a major exclusive for this 2024, and this could highlight a certain controversial aspect that characterizes it. The ShiftUp game was initially presented as a multiplatform project, when it was still titled Project Eve, and at the time it was considered one of the many interesting titles on the Korean scene, but few would have predicted its incredible rise to the attention of the mass audience. This coincided with its transformation from a multiplatform title to one of the major PS5 titles in this 2024 which is rather poor in Sony first party productions, but carefully filled with exclusives through strategic agreements with third parties.
It is precisely this extreme visibility that makes the detail easily emerge elephant in the room that Stellar Blade's aesthetic brings with it: the fact that eastern development teams have remained essentially impervious to modern trends on the representation of videogame characters, especially female ones. It is certainly not a new phenomenon, given that we have seen it in a good part of modern Japanese productions, from Bayonetta 3 to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but in a certain sense the ShiftUp game seems to flaunt more than others the insistence on the female forms of protagonist, and the question could bring out some dilemmas, especially with regards to Anglo-Saxon video game criticism which, in recent years, has demonstrated great sensitivity on the topic of the excessive sexualisation of women in video games.
A contrast of visions
Some diplomatic incidents have already emerged, as we saw with the IGN France article which even led to the publication's apology towards the developers for a rather harsh dig launched by a journalist on the alleged “childish” vision of the woman who would emerge from Stellar Blades. It is clear that there has been, for years, a contrast of visions between the West and the East as regards this theme, in a curious double standard that has been going on for a few years now between an aesthetic revolution underway among Western teams and a maintenance of “classic” aesthetic canons by the developers in the Asian area. Here we do not want to make it a question of right or wrong, but simply to highlight how this largely silent contrast, which in some cases has led to clear critical stances on the part of some elements of the press, could explode with the arrival by Stellar Blade.
However, the situation appears even more complicated if you consider that Sony itself is a rather active company on the “progressive” front, so to speak, so the fact that it has decided to put its own brand on this game could represent a curious question. On the other hand, the total support of the company, which is presenting Stellar Blade as a serious PS5 exclusive, could also lead to a different perception of what until now was a problematic element, or at least this could take second place compared to other qualities of the game, given that the title in question is now seen as a project of considerable importance in the 2024 market. In short, Eve and the other heroines of Stellar Blade could prove disruptive in several senses, and we are curious to see the effects upon release, set for April 26th.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial team and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
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