Sony Says Stellar Blade Art Referencing Racist Language Was Unintentional, Will be Patched Out

Sony says it will remove Stellar Blade artwork that appears to reference racist slurs, claiming that the phrase’s inclusion was “unintentional.”

The art, which appears to combine two visual elements into a single phrase, was discovered during the review process. It can be seen in the screenshot below.

In Stellar Blade, the “R Shop” references Roxanne, who is one of the game’s information brokers. The “Hard” graffiti, meanwhile, can be found in numerous areas throughout the game. In a statement released to IGN, PlayStation said that developer Shift Up had no intention of creating offensive artwork, promising to remove it as part of Stellar Blade’s Day 1 patch.

“The placement of two graphics near each other in Stellar Blade resulted in an unintentional objectionable phrase,” PlayStation’s statement read. “Shift Up had no intention of creating offensive artwork and will be replacing the graffiti for the Day 1 patch.”

While Shift Up is Stellar Blade’s developer, Sony Interactive Entertainment is serving as its publisher. IGN has asked Sony if there are any plans to remove the art from the disc as well, and PlayStation’s representative repeated that it “should be removed for all users in the Day 1 update.”

Stellar Blade is set to release April 26 on PlayStation 5. You can read our full review here.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

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