Stellar Blade to be “Uncensored” in all Regions

I’ll admit, when it comes to the cult appeal of Asian developers, I’ve clambered up the leg of Suda51, Shinji Mikami, and maybe Fumito Ueda. Yoko Taro, Hyung-Tae Kim, Yu Suzuki, Hideo Kojima, and Keita Takahashi, not so much. Kim is probably best known for being an illustrator for Blade & Soul, being the character artist for the two Magna Carta games, as well as some other projects. Most recently founding Korean studio Shift Up and working on the upcoming PS5 title Stellar Blade, previously known as Project Eve for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

「Stellar Blade」 offers the same uncensored version in all countries, including the Japanese version.
ステラブレードは、日本版を含むすべての国で検閲されていない同じバージョンを提供しています。#StellarBlade #PS5 #Uncensored pic.twitter.com/dJojSgZH9y

— StellarBlade (@StellarBlade) April 21, 2024

Despite being about as sexless as a panda in a strip club from the gameplay and screenshots we’ve seen, an interesting announcement has been made about Stellar Blade. Tweeting out from the main account for the game on Twitter (or X if you’re bent over yourself too much), it was announced “Stellar Blade offers the same uncensored version in all countries, including the Japanese version.“

What exactly this means in terms of gameplay and storywise isn’t said, and I don’t think we’ll find out until later this week. Thanks to an interview between Hyung-Tae Kim and Yoko Taro for IGN Japan, the Drakengard, Nier, and Nier: Automata director said: “Stellar Blade is a really amazing game. I’d say that it’s much better than Nier: Automata.”

When pressed on this, Taro said, “The graphics are completely next-gen quality and the character design’s direction is amazing. The cool male characters and cute female characters unique to Mr. Kim’s style are really appealing. Shops in RPGs often have a close-up shot of the shopkeeper, which I don’t like because I think it feels unnatural. Stellar Blade has a shot like that too, but the shopkeeper was so cute that I didn’t mind! Her cuteness felt more important than any design choices.“

Stellar Blade is set to release this Friday, April 26th, on PlayStation 5. Published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, it seems that Stellar Blade will be console-exclusive for quite some time, with no PC port announced yet. However, as we’ve seen in recent years with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West, God of War, and arguably less so Helldivers 2, Sony/PlayStation are more willing to see games leap to PC after a short while.