It’s no secret that Stellar Blade — the upcoming PlayStation-exclusive action RPG which has received an adults-only (18+) rating — features an attractive female lead named Eve. This character was featured very heavily in the trailer that was dropped at PlayStation’s State of Play last month. The trailer and specific sections from it that featured the game’s protagonist Eve quickly became the talk of the town for, well, some obvious reasons, and it turns out that’s exactly what the devs wanted.
Nothing wrong in having a beautiful character like Eve in Stellar Blade
It is an “entertainment targeted for adults,” afterall
When asked about Stellar Blade’s character design, game director Hyung-Tae Kim revealed that the team deliberately put more effort into creating an attractive character. More specifically, they put “special attention” on the backside of Eve to ensure the players have a beautiful character to look at while playing the game.
“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,” he said.
It’s not surprising to see this coming from Stellar Blade’s devs, though. I say that because it’s made by the same folks who made Goddess of Victory: Nikke with butt-jiggling characters. They even faced backlash for promoting that game with overly sexualized and pornographic material in Thailand, following which they had to take down the ad and issue an apology.
“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,”
Hyung-Tae Kim
“Honestly, when I play a game I would like to see someone who is better-looking than myself. That’s what I want. I don’t want to see something normal,” Kim said, when asked more about the character and why they put special attention to Eve’s appearance. “I want to see something more ideal. I think that is very important in a form of entertainment. This is, after all, entertainment targeted for adults,” he added further.
More than just for pure titillation
Also, it’s really not that serious
Kim opened up a bit more about the cultural situation surrounding the characters like Eve, and how some people are particularly strict and more vocal about sexuality in games versus some other form of entertainment like movies, animation, etc. The reason they deliberately pursued this, according to him, was not just for pure titillation.
Creating a character like Eve “has become somewhat of a brave thing to be going for or attempting,” he claims. So it seems as though the devs choose this character design on purpose to ensure these characters are still being celebrated in video games, just as they are in other forms of entertainment. “I personally think that compared to movies, animations, manga and so on, people are especially strict towards games. In games, there’s all the views that people have [which are] not always positive about unrealistically beautiful characters,” he said.
I am totally with Kim on this, and I truly believe we need to be more forgiving towards the devs and artists who are trying to put their best work forward with these characters. It’s almost like you can’t have unrealistically beautiful characters in video games while it’s completely fine for them to exist in, say, a manga. Also, we’ve had plenty of female characters in video games that have found power in sexuality in the past, then why scoff at them now?
We’ve had plenty of female characters in video games that have found power in sexuality in the past, then scoff at them now?
The point that I am trying to make here is that Stellar Blade’s Eve isn’t the first character to make some people’s gear grind the wrong way, and she certainly won’t be the last. But it’s important that we acknowledge — if not celebrate — all these games and respect their stylistic choice, and that’s exactly why I am here to see what Kim and his team have cooked for us.
Besides that I also fully agree with Kim on his thoughts on putting special attention on the back of the character. It is, after all, what a player is always facing, so why not have a character with a well-designed back profile. It just so happens that Eve’s character is built around the body scan of Korean model Shin Jae-eun, which may or may not be the reason I am just as excited about this as I am about GTA 6.
That being said, Stellar Blade looks like it would’ve turned out great even without a character like Eve. There’s definitely more to this game than just a character and the devs design choice, so let’s not ignore the work that’s been put into it. I am going to approach it with an open mind and so should you when it comes out on April 26, 2024. Don’t forget to preload it on April 24 to be among the first to jump into the game when it comes out.
