Stellar Blade will reportedly launch "uncensored" in all regions, including Japan, amid overwhelmingly positive player reviews of the game's demo.
The announcement was made via the game's official X account, formerly known as Twitter, which featured both English and Japanese text. The message included a pixelated image with a red X emblazoned across it and the words "uncensored all countries."
Stellar Blade Uncensored
(Photo : Shift Up / Screenshot taken from official website)
Stellar Blade is not set to launch in full until Apr. 26, 2024, but it has already generated so much hype with its demo. The developer, Shift Up, had also asked players to "go easy" on the demo as some users have already recorded more than 50 hours of playtime.
This is progress that can be carried over to the main game when it launches later this week and the demo of the game itself peaked at 690,000 daily active users. The director of Nier: Automata, Yoko Taro, also praised Stellar Blade, saying that it is much better than his title, according to Eurogamer.
He added that the latest game's graphics are completely next-gen quality and noted that the character design's direction was "amazing." Yoko also praised Stellar Blade's cool male characters and cute female characters that he said are unique to Kim Hyung Tae, the director of the game.
The announcement of Shift Up regarding Stellar Blade's censorship could have been prompted by the brutal enemy finishes and at least one costume for the game's main character. The latter was said to be rather revealing, which could cause it to be censored in some regions.
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Stellar Blade is set to launch exclusively on PlayStation 5 and there has been no information regarding a release on other platforms. The launch of the game's demo also sparked a minor scandal when a French reviewer criticized the design of Eve, the main character.
They said that the designer of the character had never seen women and expressed their disapproval of Eve's overall design. However, representatives from the publication have already apologized to the creators of Stellar Blade for the comments, said 80lv.
Highly Anticipated Launch
The announcement of Stellar Blade being uncensored in all regions comes as it is common for games to make changes in order to secure a release in some countries. This is primarily due to various regions having their own rating boards that each have their own criteria on how to assign an age rating to a product.
If they deem that a game is too mature to get the age rating that the publisher is looking for, it could be forced to change some things for the title to be launched in that particular region. In the worst-case scenario, a country can wholly deny giving a game an age rating, which would effectively ban it from that area.
Stellar Blade has a Mature rating with ESRB and PEGI has given it an 18. The former mentions "blood and gore, [strong] language, suggestive themes, and violence." This is relatively well within expectations of what fans would be able to see within a game with this particular rating, according to The Gamer.
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