A recent preview of the upcoming action RPG Stellar Blade by IGN France has upset several players online. This is due to the comments made in the preview by the writer Ben Ossola when addressing the appearance of the protagonist Eve. After highlighting the game’s setting and other details, he then went on to address her “sexually appealing” nature by saying “the design of the game, in particular its character, highlights an obvious bias”. “We’re going to beat up the alien, but if we can do it while pleasuring the eyes of the men, that’s a bonus.” Ossola said, via an English translation of the article.
“It’s not new, and other games have made the choice to highlight the assets of their female characters, but where Bayonetta bears an iconic character design, or 2B from NieR: Automata, inspired an entire generation of cosplayers, Stellar Blade’s Eve is just boring. A doll sexualized by someone who has never seen a woman.”
IGN writer Ben Ossola insults Stellar blade director/artist Hyung Tae Kim who has married fellow concept artist Jiyun Chae
byu/yo_meech inAsmongold
Following this statement, the author went on to change the snippet describing Eve to “A doll sexualized by someone you would think has never seen a woman”. This change likely came after the backlash the author seemingly received. Additionally, a disclaimer was added to the article that says “this last sentence has been slightly edited for French speaking people pretending not to understand what we meant, and the English speaking mob who Google Translated the initial text.” Although the disclaimer then changed again to the article was edited “following death threats”. It’s worth noting that Stellar Blade creative director and Shift Up CEO Hyung-Tae Kim is currently married to Shift Up concept artist Jiyun Chae, who is, in fact, a woman. As such, the statement “a doll sexualized by someone who has never seen a woman,” would be inaccurate. Stellar Blade will launch on April 26 for PlayStation 5.
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