Dead or Alive 5 fans demanded ridiculous breasts

Dead or Alive 5 was supposed to mark a step away from the franchise's notoriously sexualised characters and bizarre breast physics, but long-term fans ended that little scheme by throwing tanties.

"We were getting feedback from the overseas offices to tone down the sexuality - to tone down the sexiness of the game, and of the characters," director Yohei Shimbori told Gamasutra

"We actually got a lot of feedback from people who were playing it, saying, 'We want bigger breasts. Make the characters more like that.' That was kind of surprising.

"There's definitely still room for having sexualized aspects. If you have a solid fighting game system there, there's nothing wrong with having beautiful characters as a layer on top of that - that's another layer of entertainment that there's a need for. If there wasn't a need for it, people wouldn't have responded to the alpha demo like they did, and send us feedback."

Despite international qualms, Team Ninja went ahead and returned to the famously silly lady chests the fighter series is famous for, having learned its lesson with previous release Ninja Gaiden 3. On release, the developer was surprised to find series fans most unreceptive to the new hack and slasher.

"One of the things that I learned was the power of having a series behind you, and what it means to be part of a series. There are existing fans out there, and you have to think about the people who have supported the series for so long, and you want to make sure that the game that you make appeals to them first, and satisfies those fans first," Shimbori said of this experience.

"As a director, I really try to take fan feedback into account. I really try to keep an open mind."

Dead or Alive 5 is out now in Australia and the US, and arrives in Europe tomorrow, for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Thanks, Dark!