Stellar Eve Patching Out An Accidental Slur Is Not Censorship

Summary

The controversy around Stellar Blade's 'Hard R' graffiti was unintended and already fixed for release.
Shift Up did not intend to include offensive content and will be replacing the graffiti in a Day 1 patch.
Claims of censorship are unfounded, as Sony did not force the removal and Shift Up is rectifying a mistake.

If you’ve been keeping up with the raging discourse around the controversial South Korean PlayStation exclusive , you’ve likely already heard about the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hard R graffiti. If you haven’t, here’s the summary: Stellar Blade uses a couple of repeated graphics 𝕴throughout the game. One of them is just the word ‘hard’, sprayed onto walls. There are also shops where you can find an information broker called Roxanne, indicated with neon signs of the letter R. In one unfortunate place, the graffitied word ‘hard’ was💎 placed next to a neon R, creating the phrase ‘hard R’. The graphic was patched out before release and replaced with the word ‘crime’.

‘Hard R’ is a phrase used in the West as a euphemism for a racial slur referring to Black people. As a person who lives in Asia and does speak English as a native language, I know lots of people who have n🥀ever heard the phrase ‘hard R’ in their lives because they either aren’t familiar with or aren’t particularly interested in racial tensions in other continents. Even in the West, the term is confusing as it can also mean paꦰrticularly violent movies with the R rating, sometimes known as Hard-R movies.

It is unlikely that a team of Korean game developers would know this, because it’s a racist phrase in a language that they don’t speak. A statement from PlayStation to IGN already sai♏d as much.

The placement of two graphics near each other in Stellar Blade resulted in an unintentional objectionable phrase. S🅺hift Up had no int💮ention of creating offensive artwork and will be replacing the graffiti for the Day 1 patch.

Despite the pretty obviously unintentional nature of the phrase, the same group of gamers that has been positioning Stellar Blade as a cudgel against 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:gaming journalists who hate hot women is now crying that the game has been censored and Shift Up has betrayed its principles. Like most, maybe even all, journalists, I am anti-censorship, and I’m sure this isn&rsquꩵo;t actuall🐻y censorship.

For Shift Up to be betraying its principles, you’d have to argue that it intended to include a slur in its game, knowing that it would be offensive and would likely damage its standing with PlayStation. It’s clear this is not the case, it did not intend to be offensive, and it is simply rectifying a mistake that could be offensive to players. The people saying this is censorship are claiming that Sony forced Shift Up to remove t💯he reference. There’s no evidence that Sony did this, and if Sony did want to censor the game, it would have done so way before release day.

It’s crucial to remember that for such a controversial game, Stellar Blade is actually very a🍸political. You’re allowed to have your opinions about sexy video game characters and what they represent in your imagined culture war – I certainly have plenty to say about how Eve is dep♉icted in the game – but projecting that onto Shift Up’s developers is pretty silly.

As much as players may claim Stellar Blade upholds values that the general right-wing, anti-DEI sect of gamers espouse, that&rsq🐼uo;s simply not true. The game isn’t right-wing, nor is it left-wing. According to previous statements and interviews, Shift Up’s CEO really just wanted his main female character to be hot. The developers have never said that they are anti-censorship, that slurs should be allowed in games, that all women in games should be sexy, or that they have any kind of political agenda at all. We can view the game as a reflection of modern politics, especially in how it’s been perceived by audiences, but Shift Up itself has never claimed to have any political leanings at all.

Eve from Stellar Blade surrounded by her outfits like a dress up paper doll

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Posts 168澳洲幸运5꧟开奖网: ಞ

That’s not to say that Shift Up hasn’t leaned into the controversy as part of its marketing – announcing that the game would be ‘un🌞censored’ in all countries certainly fanned the flames, despite the fact that it’s unclear what would have been censore𝔉꧒d in the first place. But to extrapolate this into a full projection of Sh🅰ift Up’s politics is pretty misguided. Maybe they just don’t want to be known as the studio that left a slur i๊nside their game. That’s not censorship, it’s just business sense.