Too “Problematic” for the Nintendo Audience?

According to South Korean media outlet PlayForum, Stellar Blade developer Shift Up recently obtained a Devkit exclusively for Switch 2 and is working on a port for Nintendo’s console. So far, so good: Stellar Blade was released on April 26, 2024, as a PS5 exclusive, before being launched on PC on June 10. On both occasions, the game was a critical success. So, what’s the problem?

Stellar Blade is an action-adventure game in which you play as Eve, a young woman who is a super-soldier, featuring cybernetic augmentation and charged with defending the last human bastions on an Earth devastated by an alien invasion. The game is played from a third-person viewpoint, alternating between exploration and combat.

No doubt Eve is exceptionally beautiful. The game’s design, gameplay, and cinematics have been designed to emphasize Eve’s physical perfection. Tight-fitting costumes, voyeuristic low-angle camera angles, and a figure whose buttocks and breasts have been exaggerated, that would give Lara Croft a run for her money. When you mentally place Stellar Blade alongside other Switch 2 launch games like Mario Kart World or Donkey Kong: Bananza, the contrast can be unsettling.

Is Stellar Blade really a sexist game?

Stellar Blade’s portrayal of Eve is sexist. The developer has fully and publicly assumed this choice, claiming that the game is intended for an adult audience. He has also tried to justify paying a lot of attention to Eve’s posterior because it’s the part of the character’s body to which players are most exposed. Stellar Blade is a third-person game. In the third-person perspective, the camera is positioned behind the character. And what’s behind someone? His or her buttocks, of course!

Not very good logic to begin with, that’s for sure. Especially as Eve is almost reduced to a doll to be dressed up and made to look good. The many outfits and “armors” Eve can be decked out in seem more suited to a BDSM dungeon in the cellar of an isolated country house than a futuristic, dystopian battlefield.

And that’s not counting the numerous situations in which the camera zooms in on Eve’s or other female characters’ breasts and/or buttocks. Oh, look what I’ve just found! A video extract showing Eve climbing a ladder captured in 4K on a PC equipped with an Intel i9-14900k CPU and an Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics card.

The aim of this video was obviously not to show how well Eve’s buttocks, seen from below, were animated as she climbs. But no, otherwise there wouldn’t be all that technical data in the video title, would there? On a more serious note, Stellar Blade sometimes gives the impression of providing fan service to perverts.

Stellar Blade is still a game, a good game even.

Personally, I understand the accusations of sexism levelled at Stellar Blade. However, I don’t find the game as problematic as some of its detractors. Especially as the rest of the game is pretty good.

In my opinion, Eve’s character doesn’t have to be representative. Her looks ARE unrealistic. But the game never tries to persuade players otherwise. I found the game has a very loud, awkward manner of being aware of what it’s doing and who it’s addressing.

The developers have added an animation linked to an outfit in the game’s DLC. When the player tries to look under Eve’s petticoats, she kicks you back in the face. This animation is a reference to another game, Nier: Automata, which suffered more or less the same criticism at the time, but more on that later. Above all, it shows that the developers knew their players would try this. That’s why I found Stellar Blade’s admitted sexism less dangerous, because it’s not subversive.

Another argument is that Eve is a super-soldier, literally superhuman. We can’t take offense at her conventionally perfect physique, just as we can’t criticize Captain America for not having a paunch or a double chin. This cult of the perfect, almost mythological physique is a theme found in many video games and other works of fiction. Marvel and DC Comics happen to be two of the most notable recent incarnations.

The representation and standardization of a character’s physicality has a place in video games. Once again, in my opinion, it is not always the case and not in all video games. In a game like Stellar Blade, given the story and the context in which it takes place, the fact of embodying a super femme fatale doesn’t seem outrageous to me. The opposite, a middle-aged woman in jeans/sneakers with a more ordinary physique, could perhaps even take me out of the game’s immersion and undermine my willing suspension of disbelief. Especially so since Eve’s model is based on a real woman, a South Korean model known as Shin Jae-eun.

Perhaps we could turn this argument on its head, considering that Eve’s sexist portrayal may have driven many male and female players away from the game. A game that’s quite good, by the way. Stellar Blade’s universe is cool, the graphics are beautiful, the soundtrack is very nice, the gameplay is edgy and varied, with the possibility of varying combat styles.

Nintendo doesn’t just have a family-friendly audience

I’m in the middle of a false debate about a game that was released last year. However, the idea behind this article was to ask whether Stellar Blade should be released on the Nintendo Switch 2 or not. The main reason behind this question is how Nintendo is generally considered to cater to a family-friendly audience.

In reality, Nintendo’s fan base includes a significant number of adults. I’m not talking about preppy adults without the slightest flaw or vice, like those you see in ads. No, I’m talking about people who train day and night on Smash Bros without taking a shower. People who enjoy making kids cry on Mario Kart because they’ve been playing it for 20 years and know all the shortcuts. And people who play games containing scenes of violence and nudity.

This audience base is likely to widen with the Nintendo Switch 2, which lets you play far more third-party games than its predecessor. Third-party games like Nier: Automata were ported over to the Switch in 2022. Nier: Automata, like Stellar Blade, puts you in the role of a woman (an android) fighting to save the Earth, which has been invaded by monsters. And like Stellar Blade, Nier: Automata delivers a more than connoted representation of its female characters.

The voyeuristic aspect is less ostentatious than in Stellar Blade. Personally, it still caught my attention when I played the game. In any case, it shows that this kind of game can exist on a Nintendo console. And above all, this kind of game will find its audience, even at Nintendo.

The real problem, as I see it, is that Stellar Blades, like Nier: Automata and even the Lara Croft games (to cite a more mainstream example) could have existed and been successful without sexualizing their protagonists. Mind you, this isn’t the case for every game featuring a hypersexualized female character. There are some very bad games where the only “interest”, or rather the only selling point, is this sexualization of the character(s).

It’s true that it’s nicer to contemplate a conventionally beautiful character. However, it’s also a pity to make it the primary attraction of the game when the rest of the game has so many other good qualities.

What do you think of the possible porting of Stellar Blade to the Nintendo Switch 2? Do you find such a game to be a potential banana skin?