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Stellar Blade's director is unsurprisingly a big fan of 2B and Tifa, but his inspirations also include some of Tekken's leading ladies and a GameCube cult classic
Stellar Blade director Hyung-Tae Kim cites Capcom's P.N.03 as an inspiration for protagonist Eve's movements and physical features, despite the GameCube cult classic's mediocre reviews.
Given the unrelenting thirst inspired by Stellar Blade's Eve, you might not be surprised to learn that director Hyung-Tae Kim is a big fan of some of gaming's most notable sex symbols, including Final Fantasy 7's Tifa and Nier: Automata's 2B. But you might not have expected Eve to have been inspired by the lead of a 21-year-old GameCube cult classic.
Australian magazine Stack asked Kim what his favorite PlayStation heroines were, and he responded "This is a very difficult question because there are so many... Michelle and Nina from Tekken 2, Tifa from Final Fantasy XII [sic], 2B from NieR: Automata, and so many more for different reasons. I think I like the idea of having an independent and strong side to them without hiding their own charms."
Kim cites a wide variety of console games as personal inspirations, including "NieR: Automata, Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, God of War, Sekiro, [and] Jedi: Fallen Order." But he made a special callout of a particularly deep cut: "Capcom's P.N.03, which came out during the GameCube era, had a lot of influence on the protagonist's movements and physical features."
P.N. 03 is a 2003 third-person shooter directed by Resident Evil legend Shinji Mikami. The idea is that you're Vanessa Z Schneider, a sci-fi mercenary in a powered exosuit, blasting enemies to a rhythmic beat that leaves you constantly shaking your hips. A thin, repetitive campaign netted the game mediocre reviews at launch, but the game's sense of style quickly made it a cult classic, and it's easy to see how Vanessa could have been a particular influence on Eve.