Sony’s Sword Stars first-day patch removes potentially racist gameplay footage

By James Ovie

Sony’s PS5 exclusive masterpiece “Stellar Blade” has been officially released. The Hong Kong server is priced at 568~628 Hong Kong dollars, and the Japanese server is 8980~9980 yen. In terms of value, it is undoubtedly more cost-effective to buy the Japanese version now that the yen is depreciating.

Despite the controversy, developer, Shift Up stuck to its decision and promised to release the Harmony-free version of the game in all regions, but Sony still updated a day-one patch after the game was released, updating the version number to 1.002, and also updated some costumes Harmonized with bloody scenes.

IGN pointed out a few days ago that there is a game store called “R shop” in “Sword Star”. When you look at the “Hard” graffiti on the wall next to it, some groups will think it is related to racism, but Sony claims this was unintentional.

PlayStation says: Two images close together in Sword Stars inadvertently led to a potentially offensive phrase. The studio had no intention of creating offensive artwork, and the day-one patch will make changes to the graffiti. This has been part of the adjustment.

In addition, some players have reported that some of the clothing in the game seems to have been quietly harmonized, and the protagonist’s partially exposed parts are covered with more fabric.

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In fact, more than one player has reported this problem. The physical version released in Japan provides a costume, but if the player continues to install online, some new layers will be added to the first-day patch, otherwise, this process is irreversible, and then what you see becomes the following:

In response to this question, “Sword Star” production director Jin Hengtai responded as follows when reporters asked “whether the game has been harmonized” and “if there are any plans to roll the game back to the pre-harmony version in the future”:

“We are aware of this problem, and what we finally showed players was the version with the first-day patch, and I admit that this is the version we finally released. In any case, we have understood that this is not an answer that satisfies players, and we are working on it internally Discuss and will give you an answer in the future.”

Although he did not say it explicitly, this answer also shows that Jin Hengtai admitted that the game content has been adjusted, and they currently do not seem to have any good methods or measures to promise players.

With the problem unresolved, Mark Kern, one of the original designers of World of Warcraft, launched a petition in the player community. “The game we received after purchasing it in good faith was not as advertised,” he said.

Of course, not only him but also a large number of global players also expressed their dissatisfaction. This petition, which has just started one day, has already received more than 15,000 signatures.