Gamers scored a monumental win last evening as Shift Up announced they would be uncensoring Stellar Blade and allowing the outfits that were originally intended to come with the game to be added back into gameplay. This marks a second historic win from gamers over the video game industry, trying to tamper with games and gameplay to promote anti-consumer agendas led by Sony Play Station.
Stellar Blade is one of the only exclusive Play Station games that has garnered much interest from gamers. The video game has high action, a sexy female protagonist, and interesting gameplay and was nearly universally liked. The mainstream media attempted to kill interest in the game by calling it “shallow,” but it didn’t stick.
The game fell into controversy when a patch was released nearly immediately. The patch censored several of Eve’s outfits and removed some writing on a wall that read “Hard R,” which many in the mainstream media deemed a racist dog whistle.
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Grummz (Mark Kern), one of gaming’s most important real journalists in 2024, took on the cause of Stellar Blade to get the game uncensored in the midst of what appeared to be Sony tampering with several different games for their Play Station Network. The movement #FreeStellarBlade gained steam among gamers who wanted the original game to be released.
During the controversy, Shift Up made comments implying they were listening to gamers, but the situation became muddied when the designer spoke at a conference and said that the game was always intended to be this way. Those words appeared to be untrue, given the timing of the patch and situation, and it looked like Sony may have been directing P.R. for Stellar Blade. It looked like a situation for little hope to get the uncensored version released.
However, during that time, Grummz launched a change.org petition to Free Stellar Blade. Over several weeks, the petition garnered more than 91,000 signatures for the game, which shook the industry with how organized and active the gamer community could be in mobilizing for a situation.
Sony faced another controversy in Helldivers 2, where they forced an update on the game that would make players sign up for Play Station Network—whether they were playing on Play Station or not. This quickly mobilized gamers again to react and downvote Helldivers 2, and Sony quickly reversed their decision on the game in an epic win for gamers.
Now, gamers win again as Free Stellar Blade made Shift Up move to uncensor the outfits. Grummz posted to X this morning, “We DID It! YOU did it! #FreeStellarBlade celebrates as Shift Up and @StellarBlade uncensor outfits! Thank you everyone who participated in the 8 step plan and the petition! Thank you @jamm3rd for listening to gamers.Please sign the petition, which will now be sent as a GIFT to Shift UP! So many have helped to make this possible. Everyone worked so very hard! Gamer voices are small but growing. Our wins will be bigger and bigger over time!”
This is a huge win for gamers as Stellar Blade is now uncensored and back in the condition it was advertised as when they made the trailer for the Play Station exclusive. It shows the power of consumers to band together and push back against these companies when they do wrong.
What do you think of the Stellar Blade win against Play Station? Leave a comment and let us know.
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They Never Should’ve censored it at the last minute. Otherwise I see this as Another W for Gamers.
important to note that while they uncensored some outfits, they stealthily censored others by making the cloth more opaque
this is a compromised victory at best
They probably went over every costume in the game and decided if it needed any changes.