Hiya!

So, right now, the hashtag #FreeStellarBlade is circulating on the Internet. If you don’t know what this is all about, it all revolves around the new Sony PlayStation 5 game, Stellar Blade. More specifically, this is all about how a couple the game’s main character, Eve, had her outfits changed to be, shall we say, more modest. Ever since the game’s developer, Shift Up, released their latest patch for the game, two of Eve’s equipable outfits, Cybernetic Bondage and Holiday Rabbit, have been altered to strategically cover up more of her, *ahem*, assets.

This has led to the gaming community to start a petition for Sony, who they believe to have ordered the changes to these outfits, to get Shift Up to revert them back to their original states. If you say this is a lot of brouhaha over a couple of costumes, you’re both right and wrong. You’re right in thinking there sure is a ridiculously and extraordinary amount of uproar for a couple of redesigned costumes. At the same time, you’re wrong as this was not as advertised. A big reason why Stellar Blade has gotten so much attention was because of Eve’s outfits so, yeah. Changing the costumes to make them more modest seems like a bait-and-switch.

However, what if I told you this was all planned from the beginning? What if I told you this is all part of Sony and Shift Up’s diabolical plan to sell more copies of Stellar Blade? What if the entire #FreeStellarBlade movement was mapped out from the start? Well, I would be probably wrong but what if I’m right? So, strap in and let me tell you about my conspiracy theory on how you’re all playing into their hands.

First off, I have to tell you where this all started. No, it didn’t start with the changed costumes. It all started with the IGN article with the writer stating Eve was designed by a guy “who has never seen a woman before.” This caused oh so much trouble for Kotaku as, for starters, Eve’s body was indeed based on a real woman. The IGN editor then tried to defend this statement by saying something about how seeing Eve would lead to some women being beaten or committing suicide. Pretty heavy and incredibly stupid stuff, you see. IGN then had to issue an apology but, by that time, it was too late.

Besides IGN getting a whupping from the Internet, there was another thing this entire controversy made clear: Eve was hot and you were going to be able to dress her up in hot outfits. This made gamers even more excited for the game not just because you can have Eve dress up in skimpy outfits but it also signaled Shift Up and Sony were not afraid to give gamers what they want. You can bet Shift Up and Sony took note of this for later.

Fast forward to the game’s official release on the PlayStation 5. Stellar Blade was getting really good buzz from the demo already and the demo did show off a good chunk of the outfits you can equip Eve with. The game sold well, with some outlets predicting it was on track to hit 1 million in sales on its first day.

That’s definitely a feat in itself but you can bet Sony and Shift Up wanted more. However, the initial buzz is done so they would need to do something else to create more buzz. This is when they recall the IGN post and how it got more and more people talking about the game, probably reaching people who might have never heard of it before. So, what they needed is some new controversy but they didn’t want to wait for some gaming news outlet to bungle the story. Why do that when you can create your own controversy? Why not censor a couple of outfits out of the massive number of costumes to get people talking about the game once again?

Now, how does this contribute to more sales? Wouldn’t this actually hinder sales? It might… for digital sales. For physical copies of Stellar Blade, however, this would help a lot! Remember when I said Shift Up’s latest patch altered the outfits? Well, if you get the disc version of the game, you can use a fresh install and, as long as you don’t update the game, all of Eve’s outfits, including Cybernetic Bondage and Holiday Rabbit, will be in their pre-patched state.

In other words, you get to play as Eve in her more revealing outfit! For some gamers, that actually might be enough of a reason to get a physical copy of the game! For them, getting the untainted version of Stellar Blade may be one of the greatest things in the world. After all, we had the whole #FreeStellarBlade movement! So, wouldn’t it be worth getting the disc if this is what you exactly want?

Well, what about future digital sales then? Well, this is where things will get interesting. Although the director of Stellar Blade stated the patched outfits were the original vision, that doesn’t preclude them from never ever changing the outfit back to the pre-patched look. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if a future patch gives gamers an option to make alterations to all the costumes, not just limited to the Cybernetic Bondage and Holiday Rabbit costumes. Imagine being able to remove Eve’s gloves from any of the Planetary Diving outfits or removing the head part from the Fluffy Bear costume?

Right now, the only thing you can consider to be the downside is Sony looking like the bad guy. That’s all going to change once they give the order to Shift Up to add the new patch to revert the costumes back to their original forms or add the patch which allows gamers to modify all the outfits. Heck, Sony might even look like heroes as they “listened to gamers” since they took the entire #FreeStellarBlade campaign seriously when they’ve worked you over all along!

Now, I’m not saying any of this is true. I don’t have any evidence of this at all. However, if in a week or so, Shift Up releases a patch that removes all of the “censorship” from those outfits that were “censored” and sales pick up again, can I say I was right then?

Byee!

What’s your take on the entire #FreeStellarBlade situation? Let me know in the comments section below!