Stellar Blade Petition is Blowing Up

Highlights

• Stellar Blade fans are petitioning to roll back alleged outfit changes, with over 17,000 signatures on Change.org.
• Some fans accuse the studio of censorship, but others believe the changes were the developers’ creative decision.
• Despite outfit controversies, the day one update also added a New Game+ mode, increasing replay value for players.

A Stellar Blade petition asking the developer to roll back alleged changes to the action game is blowing up on Change.org. Stellar Blade is a newly-released PlayStation 5 exclusive game that has been turning heads for quite some time. One of the game’s defining traits is its sexualized characters, with players able to dress main protagonist Eve in incredibly revealing outfits.

Stellar Blade gives players all kinds of customization options when it comes to Eve, many of which are clearly designed to show off her exaggerated bouncing cleavage or butt. In fact, there’s one skirt in the game that flies up whenever Eve runs around and gives players a clear view of her butt without even needing to manipulate the camera. The developers have never shied away from sexualizing Eve in Stellar Blade, but some have still accused the studio of tweaking a handful of the game’s outfits with the day one patch.

Comparison images and videos shared on social media claim to show how certain Stellar Blade outfits, like the Holiday Rabbit Suit, have allegedly been altered by the day one patch. In the meantime, others have said that the game’s violence has been toned down in the final product compared to what was shown in the trailers. This has caused some fans to accuse Shift Up of “censoring” the game, prompting Mark Kern to start a petition on Change.org asking the developers to roll back the alleged changes. The petition, called “Free Stellar Blade,” has been blowing up, with 17,901 signatures at the time of this writing – 16,210 of which were added in just one day, with new signatures added with every refresh of the page. We were not able to verify with 100% certainty that any of the outfits were actually censored by the update. It’s possible that there are multiple versions of the same outfit in the game, and that’s causing the confusion, or it’s all a hoax. There’s evidence online pointing in both directions. The petition is picking up steam regardless.

Free Stellar Blade Petition

Even if the Stellar Blade outfits were changed with the game’s day one patch, it seems unlikely that the changes were made because of “censorship” reasons. After all, there are still outfits in the game that are very revealing, arguably more so than the Holiday Rabbit Suit was in its original form anyway. In any case, a video making the rounds online seems to show Stellar Blade director addressing the backlash to the changes and stating that the version seen after the day one update is the one that the developers intended to be in the final product, though we were unable to verify the accuracy of the translation, so keep that in mind.

If publisher Sony forced Stellar Blade‘s team to change the outfits, that would be censorship. However, if the Stellar Blade developers decided to change the outfits on their own accord, that wouldn’t be censorship. It would simply be the developers making a creative decision, even if it’s one that may not be popular with all the game’s fans. And while some may be disappointed with the alleged changes that were made to Stellar Blade outfits with the day one update, it also added an important new feature to the game.

Besides seemingly tweaking some outfits, the day one update gives Stellar Blade a New Game+ mode. Originally, the developers planned on adding New Game+ to Stellar Blade as part of a post-launch update, so it was nice to see it added to the game at launch instead. This should give a big boost to Stellar Blade‘s replay value, to say the least.