As soon as it was shown last night during the Summer Games Fest, Stellar Blade Blood Rain‘s protagonist came under the shadow of (over)sexualization in video games, especially in certain cultures that extend these adult ideals to literal children.
Evie, the protagonist of Stellar Blade Blood Rain, which was apparently heavily inspired by Battle Angel Alita, appears front and center in the game’s new trailer, which was revealed during SGF last night. At best, the character appears around 15 years of age, judging by her facial features, with a body not too far removed from Eve of the original Stellar Blade title—shapely and sexualized.
And while Eve’s physique was genuinely a nothingburger that people threw a fit over when the first game came out, this time around, it’s a whole different story. Evie, in some scenes and from certain angles, looks even younger than 15, pushing 10, which rightfully saw many people enraged and calling out the developers for her physical design.
Like in Stellar Blade, Evie strikes many poses, and the camera angles are behind her many, many times during the trailer, with the clear intention of showing off her sexual features.
I have nothing against pretty and sexy women in video games, and I even think they have an important place in gaming as a medium representing ideals and archetypes rather than grounding itself in postmodern realism. But when that extends to children, I have to draw a line, and I think it’s more than disgusting to have a literal kid sexualized to any degree just so the developers can cater to certain demographics who’ll defend this to the bitter end because “the left” can’t be allowed to win this bullshit culture war.
Even when observed from “better” angles than the one I posted above, Evie looks extremely young. If the game, which, as I noted, is apparently inspired by Alita, didn’t focus on her body at all, that’d be completely okay. However, considering the nature of Stellar Blade and its position within the culture as this game “daring” to put hot women front and center, it was an ill-advised decision to portray Evie as such a young person.
In some cultures, especially in East Asia, there is an obsession over infantilization (of the grossest kind), and we see that most prominently in anime and manga, where sexualized underage characters show up almost constantly. This spilled over to pornography of every kind and created an atmosphere where these childlike characteristics are treated as a desirable visual element.
Games like these, if indeed Evie’s design was made with this intention, reinforce those disgusting market markers that never should’ve existed in the first place. I hope the developers will at least tweak Evie’s face to age her up at least a little, though I think her whole character is in for a detailed redesign that’ll make her look like an adult—rather than a teenager at best.
