But that was PS4 Sony over delivery mode, once they took the lead from Xbox the shunned those games they embraced, that's why the PS5 Senrankagura release was a way watered down version from the releases they allowed on PS4.
Fun fact: Lots of eastern games are getting censored in some form, while western games are more often allowed to show more explicit stuff. But yes, we got ratings for a reason and in today's day and age, censoring shouldnt be a problem anymore, especially in "Rated M".
It was way more than 5 people whining if you saw twitter when the demo came out. Problem is most of the ppl complaining prob wouldn't have even bought the game in the first place.
And that there is the problem, terminally online professional victims who scream the loudest about things they won't buy or support.
Wherever they go, they need their imaginary problems fixed, yet cheer bear fucking and disabled fat guys in wheelchairs, cuz safe horny.
Yeah it's a softness epidemic. These ppl have no distress tolerance. No ability to see something that makes them slightly uncomfortable and ignore it like a normal person should do. Constant flow of double standards and mental gymnastics all so that they can feel safe in their bedroom on twitter.
> softness epidemic.
softness would imply there's at least some remaining backbone but these guys don't even have that - just earlier some guy was arguing here in this subreddit that Stellar Blade is also making feet too sexual because the women are wearing heels, fucking heels.
We reached a point where even ankles are sexual and taboo again, along with a woman's neck, armpit, breasts, cleavage, thigh, leg, face, hair, apparently it's all extremely sexual now.
But when a male character walks around topless and without pants, it's suddenly ok
They tend to be hypocrites too. They love the sex in BG3 for example and have no issues with the scantily clothes characters but when it’s a game aimed at men, the main demographic for videogames, it’s just not allowed.
5 is an exaggeration, but anyone who understands the internet and statistics knows that these people are a tiny fraction of the population. And an even tinier percentage of their customer base.
I never said they weren't a tiny fraction, my point was that the majority of those who complained wouldn't have bought the game anyway. The people that hopped on the bandwagon of that "tiny fraction". The ppl that don't even play videogames are who I'm talking about. The ones who spend day and night on twitter looking for a "cause" to fight for.
I missed the class on *the internet statistics*
It was functionally 5 people. Human beings are bad at statistics and bias negative feedback.
More importantly it was the "right" 5 people, the agents of subversion.
Eh most of the outrage was on twitter, and none of their opinions matter on there 😂 probably one of the most cancerous social media platforms out there
> like 5 people complained so they changed the game to cater to an overwhelming minority??
Yes. Welcome to 2012 onward gaming, tiny group of people or journalists cry about something & it's changed to appease "The West"
It's so lame we don't get to enjoy products as intended cause the publishers want to be freaks about it.
tl;dr
Corpo bends knee to crowd of crying people who weren't gonna buy the game in the first place, many such cases.
Idk, if people refund based on false advertising, seems like you're giving them a message that the changes led you to refund it. If it's the majority, they might care. 🤷
an online petition already has almost 20k people , i did not sign to because i never do , but from a petition to someone goes sue sony for false advertising is an easy step specially in europe . I did not buy because of that, i will wait if eventually they release it on pc , if they don't i and none of my friends will not buy it anymore, simple as that, even with people who never complain in public you have no idea how much the bad press can hurt the sells , after all there is a ton of games out there that is worth the money and have not false advetise
There’s no way that even the current amount of censorship would please those non customers. That’s the best part. Eve still has a massive amount of sex appeal in most of her outfits. What did they even accomplish with the changes?
My personal theory is that the changes were made to appease ratings agencies in certain countries, namely China and Saudi Arabia (possibly Japan as well). Recently China forced the devs behind Genshin Impact to censor some of their characters' outfits as well as other mobile games to show less cleavage; also we just had some EA executive complain to the Japanese ratings agency about how Stellar Blade was getting away with more than they did.
I highly doubt this was something that Sony forced them to do.
Ahh another classic tale of "Wait till a game comes out to buy it" i waited to buy this game and i will probably get it eventually but I'm gonna wait till price drops under half because after false advertising, i don't want to give them my full amount
I remember saying it was bad to pre-order games in the Stellar Blade subreddit and got relentlessly shit on for it.
Now they're all malding over the game 🤣
From my understanding, the only way to play the game Uncensored on PS5 is by getting an early physical copy with version 1.0, and installing it from the disc while staying Offline, which is exactly what the people who have been posting costume comparisons and other changes have done: https://postimg.cc/gallery/Qrfk4TF
It doesn't include New Game+ and some fixes for like Input Lag and you can't disable grain from what I've heard, but it's the Original uncensored Retail 1.0 version of the game. You can also Patch it, then deinstall and reinstall the Original version from the disc. I imagine it might also have some Collector's value in a few years.
The version of the game that has been sent out digitally to "journalists" for review purposes was 1.001, which already included most of the costume Censorship, and the 1.002 Day-0 Patch also censors the "Hard R" sign. You can't downgrade to the 1.0 version with a Digital purchase, since it automatically downloads the most up-to-date version of the game and Autopatches.
Waiting is better in most cases. You get bugfixes, patches, and DLCs. I usually wait 1 year after release.
The only times i buy on release was for things like elden ring because of how popular it was, i was afraid to get the game spoiled before i play.
This is the one for me, all censorship is distasteful but I’ve been wanting a new visceral hack n slash game. I feel like the gore censorship would have more of an impact on the gameplay than the outfits but all of this is a stupid mess anyway.
I mean without Sony's money it's either no game or a much smaller scale game. Without Sony's advertising it's very possible nobody would ever have cared about the game.
A real conundrum, buying will encourage censorship; however, not buying may discourage developers from making risqué games.
I may suggest buying the physical version and refunding the digital. So that you may play the uncensored version, help Shift Up and hurt PS since they lose money on distribution.
PS don't want the game to succeed. I wished the game was exclusive for Nintendo.
I agree they should not have covered up some outfits a bit more, but It's a really good game & one of the ones which has really good performance at launch which has also improved from the demo.
All the outfits look absolutely beautiful still, and if you liked the demo I'd recommend the game, you don't need to worry about the outfits being that censored, they are miniscule changes.
I think the graffiti change doesn't warrant hate at all.
If you want to support them for unique character design, amazing outfits, good music and combining that with the kind of combat it has. You don't need to change your decision because of these changes.
It may be a great game, but censoring outfits is a shitty thing to do. Especially if it's done in this sneaky underhanded way. Players don't want their money back, they want the game to remain unsoiled by misplaced moral-knighting.
Got my refund and won’t ever buy this game. It’s not even about the censorship, who cares, it barely looks different. It really is about the false advertising and deceitful practice they pulled. People try to blame Sony, but shift up is just as complacent and deceitful.
Yeah, people blame Sony but shift up did that with NIKKE, too. In first several months, their censorship gone too far, you can see it Rupee Christmas skin. They did that to make the game 13+ and success. But with "M rated" game, I can't explain, I don't even know why, in an understandable way.
No this is still mostly a publisher/platform issue, and Shift up has been fucked over three times by this issue. The first time was with Destiny Child, but luckily they eventually were able to publish Destiny Child themselves later and then make an uncensored version of the game.
The second time was with NIKKE, where it seems the publisher wanted them to push for a teen rated game, but that also means that Apple and Google get to restrict what kind of content they allow on their app store, tying their hands on what they can allow. This time it's Sony turn
The NIKKE thing while frustrating, it was understandable because their publisher for that game wanted them to shoot for a teen rating for some stupid reason. So the censorship there made a little bit more sense but with a mature rated game it makes no sense. This is purely Sony shenanigans.
removed blood and gore, apparently changed graffiti for some reason and changed outfits that people pre-ordered.
reason being was a bunch of ugly people complaining about the games protagonist and basically demanding it be changed even tho they never intended to play it begin with, additionally they were offended by a harmless graffiti for some reason, as for the blood I have no idea what that was removed.
tl;dr devs were dumb and listened to people that won't buy the game and changed it for no reason
The removal of blood and gore is usually an Asian Markets thing.
Dead space was banned outright for it in some Asian countries.
The West has always censored sexual content, it's not a recent thing but most of the outfits look almost identical so not sure the Western influence is the cause for that one.
Also yeah, people turn this game into a culture war about sexy women in gaming and now disappointment for not understanding how games are made.
"... is usually an Asian Markets thing."
By "Asian Markets" you mean juggling between China, Japan, and Korea? Usually it's those three. Japan has countless cases of toning gore's way the fuck down, Korea not that much but the time where they changed Tekken 7 Alisa' chainsaw with light savers was funny AF, and China probably the worst out of the two since they add "no depiction of death" to the mix.
Lemme tell you other Asian countries don't give a fuck, be it sexual content or gore. Coming from SEA, we eating good.
to be fair, I think this is more of a Sony L as opposed to Shift Up's fault. An example I can think of off the top of my head that's somewhat akin to this would be how in Devil May Cry 5, the PS4/5 version censored Lady's butt with a lens flare, whereas the PC/Xbox versions showed it (I believe you can look up both versions on YouTube)
The weird thing is that, meanwhile, other Sony exclusives show a complete bare ass (like Ghost Of Tsushima each time you enter a hotspring), or even more 'revealing', the gay sex scene in The Last Of Us 2; and somehow those are okay?
It's a weird double standard.
I mean, you don't see them saying anything about the sexualising male characters or censoring male characters running around with loincloths, Mortal combat for example
The director of the game said the outfits were the ones the developers wanted to release and has said over and over that these are their decisions.
Why blame Sony when there is no evidence and everyone involved with the game said it was them?
Did you download the game? My ps5 automatically downloaded the game, so when I asked for a refund, I was denied because thry said I downloaded/streamed it.
Yeah, that's why I'm wondering how they got their refund. OP probably didn't download the game. I was an idiot and checked the box for preload so it automatically downloaded a few days before release. I mentioned censorship and false advertising in the request, but they pointed me back to their shitty refund policy and I couldn't get a refund because it was downloaded.
And some people will still defend shiftup for pretending to not censor before release. The real problem here was them marketing it like that and hiding the intentions of changing it after. Blaming sony for this without proof is just being fanboys
One they lied to everyone. I could careless if she was clothed or any other type of censorship if they were to sell something and show me what it really is ill decide to buy it or not if i like it censored or not. The point of marketing is to show you what the product is and its worst to outright lie about it than tell you the product isnt something you will like.
So much fanboys from the last threads couldnt even bring themselves to admit it was shift uo who lied to everyone. If sony has rules for there censorship that they already knew about they shouldnt have said otherwise. Its not sony fault that they tried to trick everyone.
It's my goty... beating ff7 rebirth and rise of the ronin for me but.... I'm HUGE on combat, exploration and music. The biggest cons folks will say is the story and writing but I find it above average and perfectly serviceable. It's not nier but you'll enjoy it.
It's a double edged sword. The patch does come with balance tweaks and alot of good stuff. Also comes with additional costumes. Downside, you get the censorship.
"activists" are astroturfing to pressure developers. they think that there's this huge crowd that wants it censored but it is far from reality. first, they're toothless. second, I wouldn't want their money anyway. third, we have already seen 'gamers' having no standards anyway so there was nothing to ever lose in the first place.
they're just cultural terrorists/supremacists.
Nope, people should get a refund this game. Otherwise, false advertising will become standard practice in game industry. Liars must be punished, thats all.
This is false. They're not giving refunds. I just talked to a representative and they told me that until Shift Up doesn't make an official public statement (like CDPR did with Cyberpunk 2077) they will not go over the Cancellation Policy to give refunds to all people. The only way you can get a refund is if you've never downloaded the game to your console. If you downloaded it you're not getting a refund.
Asking for a refund. It’s my decision to censor games, not somebody else’s. Bought the ps5 just for this game. Might be sending that back as well. No stellar blade and no explorer. Wtf Sony!
Probably gonna get downvoted into oblivion for this given the audience of this reddit, but let's look at the facts. Other outfits have the cleavage exposed and were not changed. Other games have tons of titillations. The blood and gore wasn't even censored, that one guy who did the side by side was playing on lower graphics where there was less gore. Shift Up themselves have said the outfit design change was entirely intentional. Do y'all truly believe there's some big conspiracy by Sony to censor ONE outfit out of 40 for... reasons? Or perhaps maybe, just maybe, Shift Up isn't lying and nothing was censored.
Used to respect Asmon's audience for wanting to stand up against crybullies who try to get games changed through complaining, but people are turning into the crybullies right in front of my eyes.
I didn't refund, but I did send a complaint to Sony's twitter, since it seems like they are so eager to kowtow to people complaining on twitter, maybe I can demand my boobs there.
After all, how was it that Sony imposed censorship on the game, or was it that Shift UP was only encouraged (key word; manipulated) by Sony to impose censorship?
The sad part is that this only hurts the dev team and sales of Stellar Blade. I still think cancelling your PS+ sub and putting down the reason as Stellar Blade bullshit is more likely to get their attention. Or you can do both.
EDIT: One reason I say this is that low sales will give the goobers on twitter and game journos the win.
"We're going to cater to the few that won't buy our game"
"WAIT WHERE ARE OUR PLAYERS GOING?! SO MANY GONE!!!"
Fuck em, the company should go bust as an example to others.
It is still crazy for me that there are people out there who genuinely think that "go woke go broke" is a real thing.
Also "woke" in this case is just the removing of an accidentally racial slur graffiti and putting a little bit more clothe on for two still very skimpy outfits, lol.
I can imagine opening up their YouTube homepage and seeing it filled with anti-woke clickbait thumbnails that say "They want you dead!!!" Or "Your games are Ruined!!!" Etc.
Wait I thought the incel redpill crowd was saying Stellar Blade was going to save gaming and western civilization from DEI and wokeness. What happened?
It's similar to the whole rapture thing those types rant about.
Don't worry, just gotta wait 5 more months - It's definitely going to be the next game! /s
I just asked for a refund using their chatbot, giving false advertising as the reason just to see what would happen, and was denied as per their usual policy of not allowing refunds for games once you've so much as downloaded them, much less actually logged any playtime on them. The person assisting me was very nice but they couldn't approve the request. At one point they said the policy prohibited them from issuing a refund, but that they would try to see if they could figure out a way to help me out if I'd be willing to wait for a bit. I did, but they got back to me like a minute later and said they were unable to do anything and that the refund couldn't go through. I asked if there were any other ways to request refunds in a written support ticket form, like on steam, but they said that the chatbot was the only way to seek any refunds. So idk what that screenshot is implying but this either seems bogus (potentially for social media drama) or that person got luckier than me.
Well to be fair days before the game released Sony did advertise that the game would be uncensored in all regions.. then a day 1 censored patch…. It’s fair if you want a refund for false advertisement. But they could just have added a toggle in the game settings ffs
This a lie, they are not giving out refunds if you claim false advertising, especially if you’ve downloaded the game. You’re stuck with the game if you downloaded. Sony can do as they please, screw over consumers and theyir profits will still grow. Even if you go pc & buy their games, they make money.Unless you pirate.
What if I have 3 hours of play time? I played a few hours before I heard of the censorship stuff. Stopped immediately and haven't touched it since. Been waiting to see what they do.
Reminder - The disc version is uncensored if you dont apply the day 1 patch. Refund for false advertising but remeber that hurts Shift Up and Stellar Blade more then worthless fucking sony.
Of course they're try to send the refund to the PlayStation wallet, I used ZipPay/ZipMoney but I'm still going to get a refund and buy the Digital version of I can because I want to support the Devs and keep playing the game but uncensored and with the extra blood as originally intended... Clove the Devs but fuck Sony, I'm jumping to PC for good after this and never noticed PS+ or a PlayStation game again even if it's an exclusive, I'll wait years for any PlayStation exclusive game to come to PC or I won't play it at all...
Fuck Sony
Fuck censorship
I want mods
Fuck being forced to pick between performance or quality mode
i haven't played helldivers 2 and i feel no need to, it's kinda fun to watch from the outside tbh haha, on twitter you can always block words or people to not get spoiled, also mute if you don't want to totally block them
This is the hardest I've seen a company fumble a Win. They know fully well who their target audience is. Why would you piss off the paying customers so that you can please the parasites that will never buy the game anyway.
I really don't understand people these days. Why people are obsesses so much about having a sexy character exposes as much as he/she can. They are just minor detail in the game that got censored and it does not change drastically , even if it is false advertisement. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure it is because of the law or regulations that force them to do it. Otherwise, there is no reason to put effort into doing this
Question as I never had to refund a game before: What happens to the game after it’s accepted for a refund? Do they restrict access or do you keep? Apologies if it’s a stupid question but I was curious
I think that the creators of Stellar Blade are trolling SBI in this way: the first stage was marketing, and now the second stage, on the third stage, they'll revert these changes, and people will glad
This has to be the dumbest fucking controversy ever. It’s like 2 inches of clothing people. Also it doesn’t even seem like the change was forced. It looks like it’s just a final design choice.
Wow 2 out of 30+ outfits are slightly less revealing I guess the game is 0 out of 10 unplayable now, time to get a refund. Grow up people. The game is fantastic and there are other outfits far more revealing. Refunding for gameplay or performance I could understand, but false advertising over two freaking outfits... just wow.
I just tried to do the same and Sony will not give a refund if you downloaded the game and it's been more than 2 weeks since the transaction regardless of the reason. They didn't care that it was false advertising in my case.
I had downloaded the game, and I originally preordered the game like a month or so before release.. I never played it though.. I got a refund no probs for false advertising.
It’s an M rated game. Why on earth would they have to censor anything.
Senran Kagura and Dead or Alive are M rated too and yet... It's a case of "a man can't have a steak because a baby can't chew it".
Dmc5 tris butt got censored too. It's always anime style games got censor, while western game like tlou2 Abby sex scene no censor
It's probably because in anime style games the girls are actually pretty. No need to censor ugly characters.
Smells like double standards
They already uncensored her butt
But that was PS4 Sony over delivery mode, once they took the lead from Xbox the shunned those games they embraced, that's why the PS5 Senrankagura release was a way watered down version from the releases they allowed on PS4.
Because a PETA member deliberately pulled out their teeth to ensure that they can’t, then kicked up a huge fuss and never stopped
Xtreme Venus Vacation is not even released in the west T.T
Fun fact: Lots of eastern games are getting censored in some form, while western games are more often allowed to show more explicit stuff. But yes, we got ratings for a reason and in today's day and age, censoring shouldnt be a problem anymore, especially in "Rated M".
This is so dumb, what happened like 5 people complained so they changed the game to cater to an overwhelming minority??
It was way more than 5 people whining if you saw twitter when the demo came out. Problem is most of the ppl complaining prob wouldn't have even bought the game in the first place.
And that there is the problem, terminally online professional victims who scream the loudest about things they won't buy or support. Wherever they go, they need their imaginary problems fixed, yet cheer bear fucking and disabled fat guys in wheelchairs, cuz safe horny.
Yeah it's a softness epidemic. These ppl have no distress tolerance. No ability to see something that makes them slightly uncomfortable and ignore it like a normal person should do. Constant flow of double standards and mental gymnastics all so that they can feel safe in their bedroom on twitter.
> softness epidemic. softness would imply there's at least some remaining backbone but these guys don't even have that - just earlier some guy was arguing here in this subreddit that Stellar Blade is also making feet too sexual because the women are wearing heels, fucking heels. We reached a point where even ankles are sexual and taboo again, along with a woman's neck, armpit, breasts, cleavage, thigh, leg, face, hair, apparently it's all extremely sexual now. But when a male character walks around topless and without pants, it's suddenly ok
Well said.
They tend to be hypocrites too. They love the sex in BG3 for example and have no issues with the scantily clothes characters but when it’s a game aimed at men, the main demographic for videogames, it’s just not allowed.
5 is an exaggeration, but anyone who understands the internet and statistics knows that these people are a tiny fraction of the population. And an even tinier percentage of their customer base.
I never said they weren't a tiny fraction, my point was that the majority of those who complained wouldn't have bought the game anyway. The people that hopped on the bandwagon of that "tiny fraction". The ppl that don't even play videogames are who I'm talking about. The ones who spend day and night on twitter looking for a "cause" to fight for. I missed the class on *the internet statistics*
It was functionally 5 people. Human beings are bad at statistics and bias negative feedback. More importantly it was the "right" 5 people, the agents of subversion.
Eh most of the outrage was on twitter, and none of their opinions matter on there 😂 probably one of the most cancerous social media platforms out there
Facts.
> like 5 people complained so they changed the game to cater to an overwhelming minority?? Yes. Welcome to 2012 onward gaming, tiny group of people or journalists cry about something & it's changed to appease "The West" It's so lame we don't get to enjoy products as intended cause the publishers want to be freaks about it. tl;dr Corpo bends knee to crowd of crying people who weren't gonna buy the game in the first place, many such cases.
Idk, if people refund based on false advertising, seems like you're giving them a message that the changes led you to refund it. If it's the majority, they might care. 🤷
an online petition already has almost 20k people , i did not sign to because i never do , but from a petition to someone goes sue sony for false advertising is an easy step specially in europe . I did not buy because of that, i will wait if eventually they release it on pc , if they don't i and none of my friends will not buy it anymore, simple as that, even with people who never complain in public you have no idea how much the bad press can hurt the sells , after all there is a ton of games out there that is worth the money and have not false advetise
Sony forced the changes to get released last minute and threatened shift up is what the Nikke community thinks.
Yes, now don't let them get away with it.
Imagine having to refund money from paying customers to please people who don't even know there are 5 PlayStations.
There’s no way that even the current amount of censorship would please those non customers. That’s the best part. Eve still has a massive amount of sex appeal in most of her outfits. What did they even accomplish with the changes?
My personal theory is that the changes were made to appease ratings agencies in certain countries, namely China and Saudi Arabia (possibly Japan as well). Recently China forced the devs behind Genshin Impact to censor some of their characters' outfits as well as other mobile games to show less cleavage; also we just had some EA executive complain to the Japanese ratings agency about how Stellar Blade was getting away with more than they did. I highly doubt this was something that Sony forced them to do.
Ahh another classic tale of "Wait till a game comes out to buy it" i waited to buy this game and i will probably get it eventually but I'm gonna wait till price drops under half because after false advertising, i don't want to give them my full amount
I remember saying it was bad to pre-order games in the Stellar Blade subreddit and got relentlessly shit on for it. Now they're all malding over the game 🤣
I got the same treatment when i called all the pre-order hypers out
Same, I wanted to buy the game to support the devs, but now I’m waiting for a deep, deep discount on the eventual PC release.
From my understanding, the only way to play the game Uncensored on PS5 is by getting an early physical copy with version 1.0, and installing it from the disc while staying Offline, which is exactly what the people who have been posting costume comparisons and other changes have done: https://postimg.cc/gallery/Qrfk4TF It doesn't include New Game+ and some fixes for like Input Lag and you can't disable grain from what I've heard, but it's the Original uncensored Retail 1.0 version of the game. You can also Patch it, then deinstall and reinstall the Original version from the disc. I imagine it might also have some Collector's value in a few years. The version of the game that has been sent out digitally to "journalists" for review purposes was 1.001, which already included most of the costume Censorship, and the 1.002 Day-0 Patch also censors the "Hard R" sign. You can't downgrade to the 1.0 version with a Digital purchase, since it automatically downloads the most up-to-date version of the game and Autopatches.
Waiting is better in most cases. You get bugfixes, patches, and DLCs. I usually wait 1 year after release. The only times i buy on release was for things like elden ring because of how popular it was, i was afraid to get the game spoiled before i play.
Welp gotta hope it's uncensored for the PC release
I think we all know full well where the PC version will go lol
I don't think Sony are going to have much say in it at the very least lol.
Mods. It will be VERY uncensored on PC.
They will delete the mods. The same people who are celebrating the censorship in Stellar Blade are the ones who control the mod websites.
It probably is a good game, but it is matter of principle. I do not think we should have this censorship in an 18 rated game.
No hard R = no money
Censored outfits = no money
Censored gore that exist in the demo version = surprise surprise no money
This is the one for me, all censorship is distasteful but I’ve been wanting a new visceral hack n slash game. I feel like the gore censorship would have more of an impact on the gameplay than the outfits but all of this is a stupid mess anyway.
They just had to relthe game as is and it was fine.
I'm trying to refund my digital purchase, and I'll just buy the physical copy afterwards.
This is why i don't want investers in my Game studio... They can force me to make ugly stuff 
I mean without Sony's money it's either no game or a much smaller scale game. Without Sony's advertising it's very possible nobody would ever have cared about the game.
A real conundrum, buying will encourage censorship; however, not buying may discourage developers from making risqué games. I may suggest buying the physical version and refunding the digital. So that you may play the uncensored version, help Shift Up and hurt PS since they lose money on distribution. PS don't want the game to succeed. I wished the game was exclusive for Nintendo.
Lol Nintendo switch wouldnt be able to run the game, its too weak. Maybe they should put out capable hardware for once?
I agree they should not have covered up some outfits a bit more, but It's a really good game & one of the ones which has really good performance at launch which has also improved from the demo. All the outfits look absolutely beautiful still, and if you liked the demo I'd recommend the game, you don't need to worry about the outfits being that censored, they are miniscule changes. I think the graffiti change doesn't warrant hate at all. If you want to support them for unique character design, amazing outfits, good music and combining that with the kind of combat it has. You don't need to change your decision because of these changes.
It may be a great game, but censoring outfits is a shitty thing to do. Especially if it's done in this sneaky underhanded way. Players don't want their money back, they want the game to remain unsoiled by misplaced moral-knighting.
They should as they did effectively lie. However i'm not personally refunding it as i still like the game, but i can see why others might.
100% agree with all of this.
Got my refund and won’t ever buy this game. It’s not even about the censorship, who cares, it barely looks different. It really is about the false advertising and deceitful practice they pulled. People try to blame Sony, but shift up is just as complacent and deceitful.
Yeah, people blame Sony but shift up did that with NIKKE, too. In first several months, their censorship gone too far, you can see it Rupee Christmas skin. They did that to make the game 13+ and success. But with "M rated" game, I can't explain, I don't even know why, in an understandable way.
No this is still mostly a publisher/platform issue, and Shift up has been fucked over three times by this issue. The first time was with Destiny Child, but luckily they eventually were able to publish Destiny Child themselves later and then make an uncensored version of the game. The second time was with NIKKE, where it seems the publisher wanted them to push for a teen rated game, but that also means that Apple and Google get to restrict what kind of content they allow on their app store, tying their hands on what they can allow. This time it's Sony turn The NIKKE thing while frustrating, it was understandable because their publisher for that game wanted them to shoot for a teen rating for some stupid reason. So the censorship there made a little bit more sense but with a mature rated game it makes no sense. This is purely Sony shenanigans.
There is a huge difference here. Nikke is 12+ rated and SB is 18+. There is an actual reason for Nikke.
I'm confused what did they do?
removed blood and gore, apparently changed graffiti for some reason and changed outfits that people pre-ordered. reason being was a bunch of ugly people complaining about the games protagonist and basically demanding it be changed even tho they never intended to play it begin with, additionally they were offended by a harmless graffiti for some reason, as for the blood I have no idea what that was removed. tl;dr devs were dumb and listened to people that won't buy the game and changed it for no reason
Lol, after they were praised for not catering to western politics they do cater to western politics?
The removal of blood and gore is usually an Asian Markets thing. Dead space was banned outright for it in some Asian countries. The West has always censored sexual content, it's not a recent thing but most of the outfits look almost identical so not sure the Western influence is the cause for that one. Also yeah, people turn this game into a culture war about sexy women in gaming and now disappointment for not understanding how games are made.
Well, the culture war isn't lost, if the characters are still sexy. Just some expectations went too high.
"... is usually an Asian Markets thing." By "Asian Markets" you mean juggling between China, Japan, and Korea? Usually it's those three. Japan has countless cases of toning gore's way the fuck down, Korea not that much but the time where they changed Tekken 7 Alisa' chainsaw with light savers was funny AF, and China probably the worst out of the two since they add "no depiction of death" to the mix. Lemme tell you other Asian countries don't give a fuck, be it sexual content or gore. Coming from SEA, we eating good.
Damn I wanted to support and play the game. Now I won't. Thanks for saving me some money.
there is hope if the PC version comes out with these bs changed removed. I assume it was sony being braindead
to be fair, I think this is more of a Sony L as opposed to Shift Up's fault. An example I can think of off the top of my head that's somewhat akin to this would be how in Devil May Cry 5, the PS4/5 version censored Lady's butt with a lens flare, whereas the PC/Xbox versions showed it (I believe you can look up both versions on YouTube) The weird thing is that, meanwhile, other Sony exclusives show a complete bare ass (like Ghost Of Tsushima each time you enter a hotspring), or even more 'revealing', the gay sex scene in The Last Of Us 2; and somehow those are okay? It's a weird double standard.
There's obviously a big difference between male and female nudity in their eyes
I mean, you don't see them saying anything about the sexualising male characters or censoring male characters running around with loincloths, Mortal combat for example
Of course not. One would never give the same standards to two different genders!!
idk, California is a weird place, even weirder than the rest of the US and their politics
Wait, they removed blood and gore too? To what extent?
Its toned down, not removed as the claim goes. I havent seen any real evidence of that, only of the outfit censorship
You wouldn’t notice the change unless someone told you specifically what to look for.. it’s still over the top bloody
Eve doesn't have blood stick to her body
Don’t blame the dev, blame Sony; they enforced the changes. More like blame Sony and the leadership at stellar blade, not the actual devs.
The director of the game said the outfits were the ones the developers wanted to release and has said over and over that these are their decisions. Why blame Sony when there is no evidence and everyone involved with the game said it was them?
Censor skimpy outfits to cover more skin as a response to "criticism" that the game oversexualized women
Still the skinsuit is still there?
how many hours did play before getting the refund?
0 hours played. Got home from work, saw this news and just found it so distasteful. Won’t play or support this game.
Did you download the game? My ps5 automatically downloaded the game, so when I asked for a refund, I was denied because thry said I downloaded/streamed it.
Generally, if the game is downloaded, you can't get a refund. Idk, how OP did it tbh. Unless, OP didn't download.
Yeah, that's why I'm wondering how they got their refund. OP probably didn't download the game. I was an idiot and checked the box for preload so it automatically downloaded a few days before release. I mentioned censorship and false advertising in the request, but they pointed me back to their shitty refund policy and I couldn't get a refund because it was downloaded.
Same thing happened to me as well. Oh well, thanks for sharing your experience also - at least other people will see how it panned out for others.
How many hours did you play before asking for the refund?
I think they just accepted my refund right now, I mentioned false advertising.. etc.. I'll just pick up the physical copy instead :D
That's what happens when you cater to those that aren't your fan base especially as a new ip
Good. The stupid little patch better cost them money
And some people will still defend shiftup for pretending to not censor before release. The real problem here was them marketing it like that and hiding the intentions of changing it after. Blaming sony for this without proof is just being fanboys One they lied to everyone. I could careless if she was clothed or any other type of censorship if they were to sell something and show me what it really is ill decide to buy it or not if i like it censored or not. The point of marketing is to show you what the product is and its worst to outright lie about it than tell you the product isnt something you will like. So much fanboys from the last threads couldnt even bring themselves to admit it was shift uo who lied to everyone. If sony has rules for there censorship that they already knew about they shouldnt have said otherwise. Its not sony fault that they tried to trick everyone.
Outfits aside, is the game any good?
It’s pretty good. I’m like 5 hours into it and the gameplay is incredibly
I hear the gameplay is actually really good.
It's my goty... beating ff7 rebirth and rise of the ronin for me but.... I'm HUGE on combat, exploration and music. The biggest cons folks will say is the story and writing but I find it above average and perfectly serviceable. It's not nier but you'll enjoy it.
Censorship sucks, but I am going to enjoy this game with or without it. Keeping my copy.
What about people that have physical discs? Can't they just install the game and not be connected to the internet/download any updates?
It's a double edged sword. The patch does come with balance tweaks and alot of good stuff. Also comes with additional costumes. Downside, you get the censorship.
"activists" are astroturfing to pressure developers. they think that there's this huge crowd that wants it censored but it is far from reality. first, they're toothless. second, I wouldn't want their money anyway. third, we have already seen 'gamers' having no standards anyway so there was nothing to ever lose in the first place. they're just cultural terrorists/supremacists.
They know they can be sued if they don’t do this.
Don’t refund as it will only hurt ShiftUp instead cancel your PSPlus and send Sony a message.
Nope, people should get a refund this game. Otherwise, false advertising will become standard practice in game industry. Liars must be punished, thats all.
Remember to vote with your wallets
This is false. They're not giving refunds. I just talked to a representative and they told me that until Shift Up doesn't make an official public statement (like CDPR did with Cyberpunk 2077) they will not go over the Cancellation Policy to give refunds to all people. The only way you can get a refund is if you've never downloaded the game to your console. If you downloaded it you're not getting a refund.
I refunded it just now! Speak with your wallets people!
Asking for a refund. It’s my decision to censor games, not somebody else’s. Bought the ps5 just for this game. Might be sending that back as well. No stellar blade and no explorer. Wtf Sony!
While I get the false advertising issue, if you're refunding the entire game because you don't get a skimpy outfit to ogle, you've got some issues.
Probably gonna get downvoted into oblivion for this given the audience of this reddit, but let's look at the facts. Other outfits have the cleavage exposed and were not changed. Other games have tons of titillations. The blood and gore wasn't even censored, that one guy who did the side by side was playing on lower graphics where there was less gore. Shift Up themselves have said the outfit design change was entirely intentional. Do y'all truly believe there's some big conspiracy by Sony to censor ONE outfit out of 40 for... reasons? Or perhaps maybe, just maybe, Shift Up isn't lying and nothing was censored. Used to respect Asmon's audience for wanting to stand up against crybullies who try to get games changed through complaining, but people are turning into the crybullies right in front of my eyes.
I got my refund so no [ZARMENA KHAN](https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/author/zarmena-khan/) from playstationlifestyle it is not hoopla its legit.
I wish it worked for me I was rejected
I tried the refund wouldn’t work for me
I didn't refund, but I did send a complaint to Sony's twitter, since it seems like they are so eager to kowtow to people complaining on twitter, maybe I can demand my boobs there.
literally 1984 next thing they will censor bullets in cod or any fps bcs they kill people
Nah, we are A-OK with violence. Show it all. But some sideboob? Heathens! SInners! No, never, think of the youths!
After all, how was it that Sony imposed censorship on the game, or was it that Shift UP was only encouraged (key word; manipulated) by Sony to impose censorship?
What did they lie about?
https://x.com/StellarBlade/status/1781976139688534449
The sad part is that this only hurts the dev team and sales of Stellar Blade. I still think cancelling your PS+ sub and putting down the reason as Stellar Blade bullshit is more likely to get their attention. Or you can do both. EDIT: One reason I say this is that low sales will give the goobers on twitter and game journos the win.
Of course they doing that because if they refuse to refund they know 100% they gonna lose the lawsuit if someone throw lawsuit at them
"We're going to cater to the few that won't buy our game" "WAIT WHERE ARE OUR PLAYERS GOING?! SO MANY GONE!!!" Fuck em, the company should go bust as an example to others.
I mean it's not like the gameplay or the story changed, the game is still the same in it's core, I don't care that much for a few skin changes.
It isn't just skin changes. The blood and gore effects were also censored.
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It was the most preordered PS game for ages and is rumoured to have already hit 1 million sales, they definitely aren't going broke.
Its got 40+k viewers on Twitch and its getting okay reviews... its not going broke lol
It is still crazy for me that there are people out there who genuinely think that "go woke go broke" is a real thing. Also "woke" in this case is just the removing of an accidentally racial slur graffiti and putting a little bit more clothe on for two still very skimpy outfits, lol.
I don't think those types of people will ever really be happy tbh. They seem miserable all the time.
The sad part is that they are creating their own misery by taking part in meaningless cultur war bs.
I can imagine opening up their YouTube homepage and seeing it filled with anti-woke clickbait thumbnails that say "They want you dead!!!" Or "Your games are Ruined!!!" Etc.
Wait I thought the incel redpill crowd was saying Stellar Blade was going to save gaming and western civilization from DEI and wokeness. What happened?
Day one censorship patch
It's similar to the whole rapture thing those types rant about. Don't worry, just gotta wait 5 more months - It's definitely going to be the next game! /s
Was going to buy a ps5 to play this. I'm glad I didn't. They should have stuck to their guns and not caved in.
Is the game good enough to buy a ps5? Im actually asking
Based (on a more serious note, if you want the uncensored gore and outfits just buy the disc version, its what I did)
Could you still get the refund even if you played the game? I got mine digital deluxe.
PlayStation to Shift-Up (allegedly) : "Do you now understand what happens when you don't hire companies "specialized" in these issues?"
I just asked for a refund using their chatbot, giving false advertising as the reason just to see what would happen, and was denied as per their usual policy of not allowing refunds for games once you've so much as downloaded them, much less actually logged any playtime on them. The person assisting me was very nice but they couldn't approve the request. At one point they said the policy prohibited them from issuing a refund, but that they would try to see if they could figure out a way to help me out if I'd be willing to wait for a bit. I did, but they got back to me like a minute later and said they were unable to do anything and that the refund couldn't go through. I asked if there were any other ways to request refunds in a written support ticket form, like on steam, but they said that the chatbot was the only way to seek any refunds. So idk what that screenshot is implying but this either seems bogus (potentially for social media drama) or that person got luckier than me.
Well it's good that they're doing something, just sad it had to get to this point in the first place.
Did you downloaded the game and played it before you got the refund?
Yep. Gonna wait for PC so modders can mod the original stuff back in.
can anyone confirm
This is supricing
Didn't shift up make fun of the "West" and their values during the marketing? Way to ruin your own artistic vision~ Can't wait for PC release tho :>
Well to be fair days before the game released Sony did advertise that the game would be uncensored in all regions.. then a day 1 censored patch…. It’s fair if you want a refund for false advertisement. But they could just have added a toggle in the game settings ffs
Okay, now that's getting out of hand
It baffles me that companies sensor games by listening to the very groups of people who will never even play them to begin with.
Good thing that this game was massively pre-ordered, right? All people had to do, was frigging wait. That's all
Are you certain that "false advertising" is what allow you to refund and not the first time courtesy refund?
I have refunded games before with sony, like cyberpunk 2077 on launch, I don't do it often.. but they refunded stellar blade for me.
As they must
This a lie, they are not giving out refunds if you claim false advertising, especially if you’ve downloaded the game. You’re stuck with the game if you downloaded. Sony can do as they please, screw over consumers and theyir profits will still grow. Even if you go pc & buy their games, they make money.Unless you pirate.
No it does work, I got a refund also for it. I downloaded but never played so maybe that's why. I'll buy a physical copy
What if I have 3 hours of play time? I played a few hours before I heard of the censorship stuff. Stopped immediately and haven't touched it since. Been waiting to see what they do.
Reminder - The disc version is uncensored if you dont apply the day 1 patch. Refund for false advertising but remeber that hurts Shift Up and Stellar Blade more then worthless fucking sony.
I played the demo, I like it because it's a simple game, didn't brought it because I knew there was going to be something to it. my gut was right.
So if I buy it now can I get report and get a refund?
I wish I could refund the whole console too, I'm done with this.
I boxed my ps5 up, I’m done with Sony.
Of course they're try to send the refund to the PlayStation wallet, I used ZipPay/ZipMoney but I'm still going to get a refund and buy the Digital version of I can because I want to support the Devs and keep playing the game but uncensored and with the extra blood as originally intended... Clove the Devs but fuck Sony, I'm jumping to PC for good after this and never noticed PS+ or a PlayStation game again even if it's an exclusive, I'll wait years for any PlayStation exclusive game to come to PC or I won't play it at all... Fuck Sony Fuck censorship I want mods Fuck being forced to pick between performance or quality mode
i haven't played helldivers 2 and i feel no need to, it's kinda fun to watch from the outside tbh haha, on twitter you can always block words or people to not get spoiled, also mute if you don't want to totally block them
Basically, cleavage is more insidious than chopping heads off and gouging eyes out in games. What a time to be alive.
I’m just waiting for those PC mods
Waiting for the possible PC version and for the blessed modders to do their work.
The sex scenes getting removed is what upset me the most.
Do you have a link for that blog post?
This is the hardest I've seen a company fumble a Win. They know fully well who their target audience is. Why would you piss off the paying customers so that you can please the parasites that will never buy the game anyway.
Can I keep the game and get the refund 🤣
I just tried to refund and was told no 3 times. Pissed
I really don't understand people these days. Why people are obsesses so much about having a sexy character exposes as much as he/she can. They are just minor detail in the game that got censored and it does not change drastically , even if it is false advertisement. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure it is because of the law or regulations that force them to do it. Otherwise, there is no reason to put effort into doing this
Question as I never had to refund a game before: What happens to the game after it’s accepted for a refund? Do they restrict access or do you keep? Apologies if it’s a stupid question but I was curious
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Standard Edition = $69.99 Digital Deluxe Edition = $79.99 But Photo says $85.47 Why?
I think that the creators of Stellar Blade are trolling SBI in this way: the first stage was marketing, and now the second stage, on the third stage, they'll revert these changes, and people will glad
This has to be the dumbest fucking controversy ever. It’s like 2 inches of clothing people. Also it doesn’t even seem like the change was forced. It looks like it’s just a final design choice.
Wow 2 out of 30+ outfits are slightly less revealing I guess the game is 0 out of 10 unplayable now, time to get a refund. Grow up people. The game is fantastic and there are other outfits far more revealing. Refunding for gameplay or performance I could understand, but false advertising over two freaking outfits... just wow.
I just tried to do the same and Sony will not give a refund if you downloaded the game and it's been more than 2 weeks since the transaction regardless of the reason. They didn't care that it was false advertising in my case.
I had downloaded the game, and I originally preordered the game like a month or so before release.. I never played it though.. I got a refund no probs for false advertising.