Stellar Blade Removes Shop With Racial Slur Before It Even Launches

thegamer.com:

Stellar Blade is a game dripping in controversy at the moment, with arguments all across social media regarding the figures of its leading characters. It's a title that would do well to avoid even more controversy than it already has, which has made the discovery of a racial slur on a wall of one of the game's buildings all the more unfortunate.

First discovered by IGN, two graphics placed rather carelessly next to each other have created a very common racial slur used in the West. Throughout the game, you'll come across large pieces of graffiti of the word "Hard" sprayed across various locations in the world. That's not much of an issue itself, but this graffiti was placed next to a neon sign of the letter "R", which is used to indicate the presence of Roxanne the information broker.

While the phrase "Hard R" obviously isn't used in countries such as Korea, where developer Shift Up is based, it is used in the West as a way of getting around using the n-bomb with slightly fewer negative repercussions. It's still a taboo though, rightfully so, and it's probably a good thing that PlayStation has already released a statement claiming it will be patched out.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that this wasn't an intentional use of the "Hard-R", and PlayStation has already claimed as much on behalf of Shift Up. According to a statement from the company sent to IGN, Shift Up had "no intention" of creating any offensive artwork, and that the placement of the two objects was simply "unintentional."

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

In fact, reviewers and content creators that have copies of the game have already noticed that Shift Up has been very quick to get the issue sorted. The graffiti in question seems to have already been replaced with the introduction of a patch