Stellar Blade finally got a new trailer during PlayStation’s State of Play showcase earlier this month, giving us a look at the game’s fast-paced combat and a release date to jot down in our calendars. Despite looking like an excellent Nier Automata-inspired, Xbox 360 throwback, most of the talk surrounding the title is all about main character Eve’s body.
Much of the focus in Stellar Blade’s trailers is on the main character, Eve, with her posterior in particular drawing a lot of attention. It led to developer Shift Up revealing that Eve’s character model is based on a real woman, Korean supermodel Shin Jae-eun, and that a lot of time and effort was put into modeling the back of the character since that’s what players will “see the most of”.
Why Is Stellar Blade’s Design So Controversial?
Stellar Blade’s character model is in the spotlight given Shift Up’s history, but the matter is more complicated than some would suggest
In a recent interview with GamesRadar, Stellar Blade director Hyung-Tae Kim revealed that the developers paid “special attention” to the back of main character Eve, claiming the game’s third-person perspective is the reason why, because players are “always facing the back of the character”. As expected, it led to a lot of giggles among gamers, interpreting the comment as Kim saying the team deliberately honed in on Eve’s backside, but he stresses that this isn’t the case.
When it comes to the design, we put special attention on the back of the character because the player is always facing the back of the character when they’re playing. That’s what they see the most of, so we thought this was pretty important.
Eve is a sexualized character in the same realm as Bayonetta, 2B, and Lara Croft, but Kim states that her design doesn’t “damage the narrative”. A lot of the characters we see in the handful of trailers we have for Stellar Blade are very intricately designed with a clear focus on detail, so it makes sense that a lot of care and attention would be put into the back of Eve as a whole if players are looking at it constantly.
Of course, that’s not to say that there isn’t any titillation going on here at all. Shift Up’s previous game, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, is infamous for its fan service, so it’s not like the developers don’t have a history of giving their characters backsides that could sink a ship. If anything, Stellar Blade is slightly toned down compared to Shift Up’s previous work, which is probably for the best, since any more could be considered even more distracting.
Whether you’re a fan of Stellar Blade’s fans service or not, the game will finally launch on April 26 later this year. It will launch exclusively for PlayStation 5 consoles, though there is no news about a PC port at this moment.
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