You might recall I covered the drama around a game called "Stellar Blade" in February. It's a game being developed in South Korea by "Shift Up" studio. It came to many people's attention, not because the game has what appears to be breakthrough gameplay or an incredible story, but because it was making Western game journalists angry. 

Why? 

Because Western game journalists are mad that the female protagonist Eve is a beautiful woman. Here in the Western world, the trend from major studios is to make their women purposefully less attractive in order to deny the "male gaze," a made-up problem by woke activists that claims the beauty of a woman just leads to objectification by men. 

Gamers struck back, giving Stellar Blade all the attention and hype, overwhelming the voices and platforms of the finger-wagging game journalists. 

(READ: The Drama of 'Stellar Blade': The Game With a Sexy Female Protagonist That Has Leftists Furious)

On March 29, the demo for "Stellar Blade" dropped on PS5, allowing gamers to experience a sliver of the gameplay. After a few days, the consensus from gamers was in. 

It's good. I got the chance to play it myself and I concur. This is going to be a day-one purchase. 

But more on that in a second, because the demo's popularity naturally reawakened the left's ire for the game and IGN, one of the top corporate gaming news sites, released an article about it. Not the gameplay, graphics, or mechanics, but complaints about the protagonist's beauty and sex appeal. 

The writer of the article echoed what many leftists have been saying. Gamers are gross and just want to ogle sexy women. Moreover, the author claimed that Eve doesn't look like any real-life woman and gamers wouldn't know that because they've never seen a woman outside of a video game. It's a play on the same tired "incels stuck in mom's basement" line being used against gamers for years. 

Once again gamers struck back, and once again, a game journalist was embarrassed. 

Firstly, as was already covered before — and the IGN journalist didn't bother to research — the model for Eve is very real and does look like the in-game model. Her name is Shin Jae-Un, a popular South Korean model and actress. I've discussed this in a video you can watch below. 

@thebrandonmorse The controversy around Stellar Blade is rooted in dumb jealousy and bad idealism. #stellarblade #gaming #videogames #women #shiftup #feminism #entertainment ♬ original sound - TheBrandonMorse

Moreover, the claim was that the creator had never seen a woman in real life himself, but as it turns out, the lead designer's wife and an artist on the team is also an incredibly beautiful woman who looks similar to Eve. 

So @IGN calls Stellar Blade protagonist a sexualized “doll” and says the creator “has never seen a living woman.”

The not real “doll”:

The creator’s wife and team artist: pic.twitter.com/IPgDbwmdgR

— Grummz (@Grummz) March 30, 2024

IGN claimed that, following this great embarrassment, it received death threats but has provided no evidence or proof that it has. While they may have, as Ryan Kinel pointed out about this story, it was probably one or two anonymous trolls trying to get a rise out of people and IGN is now using it to virtue signal. 

Once again, gamers came out on top. 

But for those curious about the game itself, and not the drama surrounding it, I can report that it's a good time if you're a fan of hack n' slash games with an edge of difficulty. 

The demo kicks off with what looks like an assault from spacecraft on Earth in the distant future where a biological alien species seems to have overtaken it and murdered much of humanity. The assault immediately goes wrong as many of the space-fairing warships are shot down, but not before at least one of them can drop pods containing android warriors, one of which is Eve, the player character. 

After most of Eve's unit is wiped out, Eve must venture on to accomplish her mission with the help of a human resistance. 

From here you get to play the game and you find that you're playing something of a hybrid hack n' slash with a lot of stylish moves and fun mechanics.

The game has your standard light and heavy hit that you can combo with different button presses, including dodge mechanics that, at first, aren't all that impressive until you're taught you can level them up and upgrade your character with new moves. This opens up timing mechanics for certain but presses that give you the ability to dodge kill attacks and even riposte. 

You automatically become interested in learning the attacks and patterns of enemy types to better fight them effectively with well-timed button presses. It introduces something of a free-form rhythm mechanic that allows you to pull off some fun combat and stylish kills. 

An IGN writer who actually did their job, described the gameplay best when he said it was "Sekiro Meets NieR: Automata." Like a FromSoftware game, "Stellar Blade" sports a flavor of difficulty that doesn't deter you but makes you want to try again and overcome it. You're going to die more than a few times but each time you do, you learn from your experience and try again. 

Graphically, the game looks beautiful. The art direction was clearly inspired by NieR: Automata which puts you into scenery that details a once thriving human world now lost and is in the midst of nature retaking it. The enemy designs look very, very alien to the point of looking like grotesque and deformed science experiments gone wrong. They stand in great contrast to the beauty of the main character, which makes for an interesting visual dynamic. 

If I'm being honest, I didn't expect the demo to be this fun and that the hype around it was based purely on spite for the woke morality police, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the game drew me in with how fun it is. The taste the demo gives you leaves you wanting more and hints that there is a feast waiting for you in the full game. 

And I can't wait to eat! I have a feeling this is going to be one of the better games made in 2024. 

"Stellar Blade" releases on April 26 for PS5.