Stellar Blade reviews are now out as the media embargo was lifted a few hours earlier, but this also resulted in a screenshot from the game going viral, showing a racial slur graffiti.
The infamous graffiti reads “Hard R Shop”, and as you may already know, the word “Hard-R” is a reference to “The N-Word”, which is one of the most shameful racial slurs.
Hopefully, a recent tweet from a Kotaku journalist revealed that the graffiti has been patched out already before the game releases worldwide, but can the developer, Shift Up, get away with this?
According to IGN, a Sony spokesperson has indicated that the combination of the graffiti and the “R-Shop” sign was unintentional. Apparently, you can find multiple instances of “Hard” graffiti in the game, and it has unintentionally combined with the “R-Shop” sign in this particular area in the game.
Well, Shift Up surely needs to release a statement for this mistake – or whatever you may call it – before the reactions to the racial graffiti go out of control. After all, the game has not been released yet, and this could hugely affect the number of sales if any boycott campaigns appear online.
Stellar Blade already made a lot of noise over its jiggle physics for the main protagonist, Eve, as well as some other side characters, but the game managed to remain uncensored in all regions of the world. Yet, here comes another controversy for the South Korean developers and their upcoming game.
Stellar Blade will be released on PS5 exclusively. The game follows the adventures of Eve in a brutal and futuristic setting. The game has received mostly favorable reviews so far, resulting in an aggregated score of above 80 on Metacritic so far.
The worldwide release of Stellar Blade is set for April 26.