One of the biggest reveals at this year’s Summer Games Fest was the announcement of Stellar Blade 2, or rather, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, the sequel to the surprise 2024 hit from South Korean developer Shift Up, which sold well and received great critical and audience acclaim. It has also been at the center of video game culture wars for two years now, and that does not seem like it’s about to change with Blood Rain.
Eve, the original Stellar Blade protagonist, was purposefully sexualized as a lead at a level we probably haven’t seen since Bayonetta. Comic book-like curves, revealing outfits, and held up as the standard by right-leaning fans as the kind of women they wanted to see in video games.
I’d argue there is nothing inherently bad about a purposefully alluring lead in a video game, of either gender, and fortunately, Stellar Blade also happened to be a very good action game, my favorite of the year. In my view, it was a shame it was roped into the woke v. anti-woke war, which made most overlook it as an actually fun video game. But sales were high enough to almost instantly greenlight not just a large number of patches (and dozens more outfits) but a sequel.
Now, however, the sequel is creating new splinter groups with the return of the culture war, now facing new fronts. There is a broader view that it seems odd that such a well-liked protagonist like Eve is not returning as the lead in a sequel, replaced instead by “Evie,” a different heroine, albeit it stands to reason that Eve is very likely to have some role in the game, if not perhaps even be a playable character in the future.
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The initial trailer for Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, shows off Evie, a smaller, deep-voiced character who doesn’t wield a traditional sword, but rather is up close and personal, an expert at tech-enhanced hand-to-hand combat.
The main point of controversy instantly became that in the trailer, Evie looks young, very young, as in possibly underage. In another game, this may not be much of anything, but in the Stellar Blade series, full of skintight and revealing costumes as a core element, it instantly seemed like a problem. Already, the conflict became more than just woke v. anti-woke, but rather, a civil war between formerly united fans. Some say she looks too “boyish,” others, like enormously popular right-wing streamer Asmongold, agree with the “she looks way too young” complaints. Still others, expectedly, say she looks just fine and reflects the appearance of other, older women in Korea.
Shift Up itself gave its own take on Evie in the midst of all this, saying that they meant her to be younger than the (theorized mid-20s) Eve:
“We intentionally set Evie to be shorter and look a bit younger, but we worked to ensure she fights in a very tough manner and exudes a cool, stylish character presence.”
There are a few additional factors here, one being that strangely, Evie often looks different shot to shot. Dramatically, in a few instances. This is an “early in production” look at the game, and like original Eve models, it’s at least possible that Shift Up may alter her appearance to extract itself from this controversy. The studio has been reactive in regard to many complaints about the original Stellar Blade, often giving fans what the majority seemed to want. It may also do that here, depending on how the wind blows.
Adjacent to this is a separate conversation about the use of GenAI in the game, where Shift Up has been positive and forthcoming about its use, whereas public discussion of the tech is often seen as taboo in the gaming industry. That has led to theorizing about why Evie may look different in different scenes, but past that, there are clear AI-generated elements in at least the background of the trailer and in the official promotional art from the game. There’s no indication that Shift Up plans to replace those elements later, as some initial GenAI-using titles have, and it may just run with the adoption on full view of the public.
It stands to reason that Stellar Blade: Blood Rain will be a hit, especially now that it’s free of a PS5-only launch. It was an especially big success on PC, dwarfing all other PS5 ports on Steam.
I do expect the next look at Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, further along in production, will look different, and we’ll see if that applies to Evie herself.
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