IGN France’s chief editor said EVE, the main character, is not a representation of a “real woman”. Turns out it’s based on a real woman.
A controversy ignited just after IGN France published their Stellar Blade preview article. Upon analyzing the game and its features, they expressed an opinion on EVE's character design that sparked significant controversy. In the now-deleted paragraph, IGN France described the character design as "a doll sexualized by someone who has never seen a woman." Many members of the community highlighted this statement, prompting IGN France to issue an apology shortly after.
Thatparkplace.com got a chance to save the infamous deleted paragraph, which originally said:
"The design of the game, particularly its characters, highlights an obvious bias. We’re going to smash the alien, but if we can do it while pleasing these gentlemen, that’s a bonus. And the result is not really a success. It’s not new, and other games have chosen to highlight the strengths of their female characters, but where a Bayonetta stands out with an iconic character design, or a 2B from Nier Automata inspires an entire generation of cosplayers, Eve from Stellar Blade is just bland. A doll sexualized by someone you would think has never seen a woman."
IGN France's apology after the backlash
The original article is still up on IGN France site. However, now you can find the disclaimer after they deleted their original opinions. They remark that "IGN France is an independent branch of IGN", pointing out that any opinion there doesn't directly represent the main brand's view.
"Recently, IGN France produced and published a preview of Stellar Blade that contained an offensive passage that should never have been kept. The text has now been modified and here is our official apology to the staff of Shift Up Corporation.
Also, please note that IGN France is an independent branch of IGN and that the editorial staff of IGN has nothing to do with this incident.
The original text of the Stellar Blade preview contained remarks that had no place. Although it was never our intention to disrespect Shift Up, or any of its employees or their work, we recognize that the phrase taken literally was out of place and we regret it.
To anyone at Shift Up Corporation who felt personally targeted and insulted by this passage, we are truly sorry and we apologize profusely."
This generated mixed feelings amongst the community, who took to Reddit to discuss IGN France's next steps. Some of them defended IGN's side saying that every article made by the worldwide site reviewed Stellar Blade as positive. Others, not so convinced, remarked that only firing the writer would be a step forward.
Is Stellar Blade based on a real woman?
The community also asked IGN France to apologize since EVE is based on an actual Korean model: Shin Jae-eun. The developers wanted to represent the "most attractive looking body for the user", which made them select her as their preferred option. Shift Up, the South Korean game publisher in charge of Stellar Blade, made this information public a long time ago.
This fact was used to criticize IGN France's Editor-in-Chief, Erwan Lafleuriel. The writer left a comment stating that EVE's model "design makes us sigh and roll our eyes, and we laugh at anyone who needs it, man or woman, but that’s it."
The original comment was in French and published on IGN France Stellar Blade's article before the edit. It was a reply to a previous opinion that said "It's a shame that women also like the character design. Guys who are afraid of “hyper-sexualization” as if it’s “dirty”. Long live the neo-puritans!"
This made the Editor-in-Chief directly respond that "The problem is not the sexy design itself (except that it sucks compared to others, but hey, that doesn't matter), but the percentage of males who will only want this type of fictional body in reality. Obviously we understand that this does not shock people who think that women are objects who must obey and be beaten."
No further information about the situation of any of the employees has been made public yet. As this story is still in development, make sure to follow esports.gg for any possible update.